Calculator Programming Tutorial

Programming Building Blocks I

The square roots exercise contains an algorithm in the form of a flowchart. Rather than describe the flowchart, the algorithm in text is as follows:

Start.
Compute (a+1)/2, and assign this to x₀.
Compute (x₀ + (a/x₀))/2, and assign this to x₁.
Compute the absolute value of x₁ � x₀, and assign this to d; compute 10^-10 times x₀, and assign this to e.
If d is less than or equal to e, then continue with step 7; otherwise, continue with step 6.
Assign x₁ to x₀. Continue with step 3.
Return x₁ as the value of the function.
End.