Electr

Interactive language for electronic formulas (on the command line).

Rationale

• I have not found an open source language or calculator at the command line, specialized in electronic formulas
• I'm always confused with milli, micro, pico, nano, etc
• I prefer to type 100K rather than 100000, or 100M rather than 100000000
• If, for any reason, I want to write 100000000, then I should be able to write 100_000_000 or 100,000,000

Vote

If enough people are interested in this project, I'll write this langage. First, a quick prototype in Ruby, as a proof of concept. And then, maybe, a more portable version in C.

So, if you are interested, say it out loud. Tell me what you think on twitter or open up an issue here on Github. In any cases feel free to start a discussion.

Examples

Following are quick examples of what I have in my mind (E> is the prompt of Electr).

Resistors in serie

Start simple to illustrate the addition. We have a 10,000 Ohm resistor (10K) and a 200 Ohm resistor (200R):

E> 10K + 200R
10.2K

If you omit the unit for the second resistor, it's OK but Electr cannot guess anymore the result's unit. Note that 10,200 is 10200 with a visual separator:

E> 10K + 200
10,200

Ohm's law

Divide Volts (V) by milliamps (mA) to get some Ohms (R):

E> 3V / 25mA
120R

Or to get kilo Ohms (K):

E> 3V / 1mA
3K

There is no symbol for the multiplication. Simply put values side by side:

E> 1mA 3K
3V

Frequency of an oscillator

A little bit more complex is the computation of a frequency for an oscillator. We've got two constants (2 and pi), a value in micro Farad (0.5uF) and a square root (v~) of the product of two resistors (11K 22K). The result is in Hertz.

E> 1 / (2 pi 0.5uF v~(11K 22K))
205Hz

One are less prone to typing errors if one enter this expression spaned on two lines:

E> 1 /
E> 2 pi 0.5uF v~(11K 22K)
205Hz

Interactive?

Electr could be more interactive. In the following session we've got a resistor R1 and two capacitors C1 and C2. Once the formula is entered, Electr ask us for the components values, then gives us the result:

E> 1/
E> 2 pi R1 v~(C1 C2)
R1=?> 33K
C1=?> 1000pF
C2=?> 470pF
7.04KHz

Fun

I like the name Electr but I thinked of some other possibilities:

1. elec
2. elect
3. reform
4. electra
5. formula
6. reformul

What do you think?