Seriously - this calculator was fun to program - but I freely admit it's not a practical tool.

My first computers were mechanical. There was the  "Think-a-Tron," then "Digicomp I" and finally "Digicomp II." Of those, only the Digicomp I was actually programmable. Think-a-Tron was a sort of punch card reader and Digicomp II was a mechanical binary calculator using marbles.

The Digicomp II included examples of things the calculator could do - including Newton's method for calculating roots, and that is what this project is for.

This is a simple calculator that can calculate square and cube roots using Newton's method.

Set the switch LEFT to calculate ***square*** and RIGHT to calculate ***cube*** roots.

* Press A to calculate the root of the current target (Default target is "2").
* Press B to play back the current root (2 or 3), then target value, finally display the current root found.
* Press A+B to randomly choose (and display) a new target value (2-1000)
* Touch A1 to display the most recent root found.

  File: Root.js - Javascript version of Circuit Playground code
  Makecode Block version here: https://makecode.com/_b3z9Vi18vcFW

Numbers are displayed by lighting the Neopixels green digit-by-digit (i.e. 3 pixels = "3", 6 pixels = "6" and so on). All digits purple indicate a decimal point and "0" is all pixels turned yellow.