As I’ve said many times before, I’m a big fan of Emacs Calc. Try as I might, I haven’t been able to master Calc in its entirety. That’s mostly because it has many advanced features that I seldom or never have the need to use.
Regardless, there are a lot of features that I do use. As long as I’m on my laptop, Calc is the only calculator that I use. I can’t remember ever having a calculation, no matter how esoteric, that it couldn’t make. I use it enough that I have it bound to F10 in Emacs.
Thomas Ingram has done me one better. He’s arranged to make Calc a desktop app by having his computer call Calc from anywhere. He does this on Linux by adding a Desktop file that points at Emacs with an --eval command line option asking it to run full-calc. He has a version for those who—inexplicably—don’t run Emacs in server or demon mode and one for those who do.
Living in the Apple ecosystem, as I do, the Desktop file option isn’t open to me but I could do the same thing by using iCanHazShortcut that I use for macOS keyboard macros. Doubtless there are plenty of other ways. Regardless, in either ecosystem or probably any modern OS it’s possible to call Emacs and ask it to run calc.
I always have Emacs running so I probably won’t implement Ingram’s solution unless I find myself often needing Calc when I’m not inside Emacs. As I said, it would be easy to add it to my iCanHazShortcut app if I do. If you don’t spend most of your time in Emacs, as I do, Ingram’s solution may be just what you need to keep Calc at your fingertips.