I keep my TI-89 next to my desk for this purpose. For some reason I like a physical calculator better than software.
My curiosity is whether it can calculate very large values (such as 2^2048) accurately...
I dunno, is this accurate? 3.2317006E616
Seems it can. 2^2048 = 323170060713110073007148766886699519604441026697154840321303454275246551388678908931 97201411522913463688717960921898019494119559150490921095088152386448283120630877367300996091750197750389652 10679605763838406756827679221864261975616183809433847617047058164585203630504288757589154106580860755239912 39303855219143333896683424206849747865645694948561760353263220580778056593310261927084603141502585928641771 16725943603718461857357598351152301645904403697613233287231227125684710820209725157101726931323469678542580 656697935045997268352998638215525166389437335543602135433229604645318478604952148193555853611059596230656 Great app!
WOW! What did you use to get all those digits?
I enabled the "Fraction" option, along with "Exact" (not required). It seemed to me that scientific notation never gave a clear picture of how large a number truly was, but luckilly this app skips past that and finds the -exact- sum, not just rounding off with 0s either. :-) http://kidindustries.net/img/qalculate.png