Frequently Asked Questions: Units Calculator

Q. Does Units do currency conversions?

Sure. But the exchange rates change every day (or even more often), so the conversion factors in the file UNITS.EQV must be updated appropriately. The program doesn't automatically compute tariffs or brokerage fees.

Q. Units Calculator takes too long to load on my palmtop. Can I speed it up?

A delay at load time will usually only be noticeable on laptop or palmtop computers with relatively slow disk access times. If it's annoying, there a few strategies to make loading zippier.

Units Calculator knows many more units than you probably need. It's reading a disk file of all their definitions each time it's loaded. You may elect to omit some of the units from the UNITS.* files by editing these ASCII files. If you do, be sure to save the original files first!

If you only need SI units, you can simply rename the UNITS.* files to, say, U.*. The program will then load very quickly, but it won't be able to automatically convert units other than those in SI. It will still do dimensional algebra as before however.

There are other strategies possible too. Contact Applied Biomathematics if you need faster loading.

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