Curvefit and Diode: Windows graphing applications

A major advantage of Microsoft Windows is its graphical user interface (GUI). Through this interface, applications can implement interactive data collection, parameter specification, and data plotting functions in a fashion that is intuitive, requires little knowledge of computers and no arcane computer language interaction. This paper introduces and makes available two Microsoft Windows applications. Both applications provide a dialog to collect laboratory data and to store/retrieve files of data to/from disk. Both applications also provide data graphing facilities. Setting parameters necessary to draw a graph of the laboratory data is accomplished in an interactive dialog that is visually self-explanatory. The first application, “Curvefit” fits an n-degree polynomial (n=1 to 5) to the data points. It has been adopted for course use by one of our materials science professors. The second application, “Diode” fits an exponential curve through the data points. This program is intended to provide the exponential equation describing a semiconductor diode. It has been adopted for use in the basic electronics course and associated laboratory