AbstractThe introduction during the last few years of desk calculators with automatic trigonometrical functions brought with it one small problem. Whereas most theodolite (or other) circles are graduated in degrees, minutes and seconds, the calculators can only readily digest degrees and decimals. For those using circles graduated in grads, the problem is less difficult, since the simple subtraction of 0.1 times the grad angle from itself gives the degree equivalent. To convert degrees, minutes and seconds, requires two successive divisions by 60 plus additions, warranting some 12 program steps. Some recent machines have overcome this problem with one or two key operations to achieve the conversion.