Wednesday, 23 March 2011

Prime Factors - execution of the program

A program for finding the prime factors of a number on the fx-50F was described previously. Once it has been entered into the calculator you can press [Prog] [N] to run the program (N is the number of the program area where the code is stored). A? is displayed on the screen, prompting you to enter a number to be factorised.

Try the number 63 which we looked at before. So enter 63 and press [EXE]. The calculator displays Then X and 3. So, 3 is the first prime factor. Press [EXE] again and the calculator displays Then X and 3 again. So 3 is the second prime factor. Finally, press [EXE] once more and the display shows Then A and 7. The display of Then A rather than Then X indicates that this is the last prime factor to be found. So 63=3x3x7 which is correct. Press [AC] to exit the program.

If you try the number 61, the calculator displays Then A and 61 indicating that 61 is only divisible by itself and 1, so 61 is a prime number and has no other factors.

It is inadvisable to use this program for numbers much bigger than 500 as the processing may take a while to complete.

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