Calculating discounts
Sometimes a store will advertise a sale where everything is 25% off (or they will offer a 15% discount to all senior citizens). If you're like most of us, you don't find it easy to do such computations quickly in your head.
No problem. Just take out your palmtop and open the HP Calc application. If you want to find out the discounted amount of an item marked at, say, $68.99, press (MENU), Applications, Arithmetic, then type in 68.99-25. Now press (F6) (%) and (ENTER). The sale price ($51.74) will be displayed.
Because all items in the store are 25% off, here's something else you can do to save time if you want to calculate the sale price of a number of items. Instead of typing in 68.99-25, type in 68.99-25. In other words, enter the minus sign twice. This makes the 25% a constant. From now on, all you'll have to do is enter in the marked price of an item, then hit (ENTER) and the sale price will instantly be displayed. (In other words, you won't have to type in the "-25" and press (F6) for each calculation.)