USA(aka Texas)/Canada

[retread]

Answer to Marcia:
I was in high school/college during the calculator revolution, but before the PC revolution.  In high school I could use the new HP scientific calculator if I first mastered the slide rule.

Yes.  I did my share of punch cards as well as the more "advanced" line editors.  I remember seeing for the first time Digital's keypad editor and I thought it was the greatest thing I ever saw.

We would run our punch card through the machine and within a couple of hours, our program listing would spit out the window and I would discover the missing comma.

One time, one of the more "advanced" moble printers ran out of paper and we discovered that the industrial paper towel rolls from the bathroom worked just fine.

To others:
Speaking of Christmas trees, NC is a large producer.  Our neighboring county Ashe County provides the tree for the white house each year.  Buying a fake one is kind of like spitting on the flag around here.

Hey Dave:
do you remember the HP SR-50??!! I was one of the first on campus to own one!!  
Verne
Verne

You must be thinking of the TI SR-50.  HP made a couple of similar cool calculators back in the good old days as well, but I could never afford them, the HP 35 and the HP 21.  The one I always wanted was the HP 29C (or even the HP 65), but I couldn't afford these at the time either so I ended up with a TI 58 that I found on sale (still not a bad calculator).  Ah memories, now I am going to have to go look on eBay for a 29C.

Now if you want to talk about primitive electronic calculators, I still have a working six digit RPN calculator (National Semiconductor) with a stack depth of one and no floating point.  Please don't ask me what I paid for this marvel of technology (actually is was very reasonably priced for a calculator at that time).

[vernecarty]

Answer to Marcia:
I was in high school/college during the calculator revolution, but before the PC revolution.  In high school I could use the new HP scientific calculator if I first mastered the slide rule.

Yes.  I did my share of punch cards as well as the more "advanced" line editors.  I remember seeing for the first time Digital's keypad editor and I thought it was the greatest thing I ever saw.

We would run our punch card through the machine and within a couple of hours, our program listing would spit out the window and I would discover the missing comma.

One time, one of the more "advanced" moble printers ran out of paper and we discovered that the industrial paper towel rolls from the bathroom worked just fine.

To others:
Speaking of Christmas trees, NC is a large producer.  Our neighboring county Ashe County provides the tree for the white house each year.  Buying a fake one is kind of like spitting on the flag around here.

Hey Dave:
do you remember the HP SR-50??!! I was one of the first on campus to own one!!  
Verne
Verne

You must be thinking of the TI SR-50.  HP made a couple of similar cool calculators back in the good old days as well, but I could never afford them, the HP 35 and the HP 21.  The one I always wanted was the HP 29C (or even the HP 65), but I couldn't afford these at the time either so I ended up with a TI 58 that I found on sale (still not a bad calculator).  Ah memories, now I am going to have to go look on eBay for a 29C.

Now if you want to talk about primitive electronic calculators, I still have a working six digit RPN calculator (National Semiconductor) with a stack depth of one and no floating point.  Please don't ask me what I paid for this marvel of technology (actually is was very reasonably priced for a calculator at that time).

Yes! Yes indeed! It was made by Texas Instruments! It says so right on the calculator!    Thanks for the correction Retread...such a long time ago....
 I also still have a fully functonal HP 11C...gotta love that reverse Polish notation...

Line editors, character editors (TECO), IBM JCL, Digital PDPs, DataGeneral.

Verne, I remember the HP?? calculator. In the late '70s, someone I know paid $500CDN for one at a time when the Canadian dollar was worth $1.07US.

Marcia

I still have mine. When I was a first year graduate student on a whim I called up Texas Instruments to ask about getting a new battery pack for it and they breathlessly wrote back to tell me they would send me brand new one of the latest models if only I would sent my SR-50 in. (can you believe it that the SR stood for slide rule???!!!)
Hmmmnnn...I wondered what the excitement over what was clearly a dinosaur was all about...I wonder what it's worth today..?  
Verne

[retread]

Yes! Yes indeed! It was made by Texas Instruments! It says so right on the calculator!    Thanks for the correction Retread...such a long time ago....
 I also still have a fully functonal HP 11C...gotta love that inverse Polish notation...

Okay, now I am jealous, the 11C is a great calculator.  However, the one that I really wanted was the 16C.  It was the same style as the 11C, and had the capability to use binary, octal, and hexadecimal as well as good old decimal.  By the time I went to buy one they were discontinued, so I bought a Sharp EL-545 calculator that also works with these different bases of numbers (this is the main calculator that I use today). However the Sharp lacks all the fancy bit logic, bit shifting and bit masking operations available on the HP.  The HP was even able to work with 1's complement, 2's compliment and unsigned arithmetic. It was the perfect accessory for the assembly language programmer.   Now, I am going to have to go on eBay and look for a 16C as well.  Actually the HP 16C may be my all time favorite calculator.

Interestingly enough the HP 12C (a financial calculator of the same style as the 11C and 16C and from the same era) is still in production today (over 20 years after initial introduction).  I guess that more people must be interested in financial operations than in bit level operations.

[vernecarty]

Yes! Yes indeed! It was made by Texas Instruments! It says so right on the calculator!    Thanks for the correction Retread...such a long time ago....
 I also still have a fully functonal HP 11C...gotta love that inverse Polish notation...

Okay, now I am jealous, the 11C is a great calculator.  However, the one that I really wanted was the 16C.  It was the same style as the 11C, and had the capability to use binary, octal, and hexadecimal as well as good old decimal.  By the time I went to buy one they were discontinued, so I bought a Sharp EL-545 calculator that also works with these different bases of numbers (this is the main calculator that I use today). However the Sharp lacks all the fancy bit logic, bit shifting and bit masking operations available on the HP.  The HP was even able to work with 1's complement, 2's compliment and unsigned arithmetic. It was the perfect accessory for the assembly language programmer.   Now, I am going to have to go on eBay and look for a 16C as well.  Actually the HP 16C may be my all time favorite calculator.

Interestingly enough the HP 12C (a financial calculator of the same style as the 11C and 16C and from the same era) is still in production today (over 20 years after initial introduction).  I guess that more people must be interested in financial operations than in bit level operations.

Can you still really get an HP 12C?? Whoa... Nelly!! I am going to have to get me one of those!!
Verne
p.s should make a nice companion for my 11C don't you think?  

[retread]

Yes! Yes indeed! It was made by Texas Instruments! It says so right on the calculator!    Thanks for the correction Retread...such a long time ago....
 I also still have a fully functonal HP 11C...gotta love that inverse Polish notation...

Okay, now I am jealous, the 11C is a great calculator.  However, the one that I really wanted was the 16C.  It was the same style as the 11C, and had the capability to use binary, octal, and hexadecimal as well as good old decimal.  By the time I went to buy one they were discontinued, so I bought a Sharp EL-545 calculator that also works with these different bases of numbers (this is the main calculator that I use today). However the Sharp lacks all the fancy bit logic, bit shifting and bit masking operations available on the HP.  The HP was even able to work with 1's complement, 2's compliment and unsigned arithmetic. It was the perfect accessory for the assembly language programmer.   Now, I am going to have to go on eBay and look for a 16C as well.  Actually the HP 16C may be my all time favorite calculator.

Interestingly enough the HP 12C (a financial calculator of the same style as the 11C and 16C and from the same era) is still in production today (over 20 years after initial introduction).  I guess that more people must be interested in financial operations than in bit level operations.

Can you still really get an HP 12C?? Whoa... Nelly!! I am going to have to get me on of those!!
Verne
p.s should make a nice companion for my 11C don't you think?  

You may have to act quickly to get an original version of the 12C.  The last time I checked (about a month ago), I saw two versions of the 12C, the original brown and gold one, and a newer silver one with new functions and the ability to use algebraic notation in addition to RPN.

[jackhutchinson]

I have an HP 15C that I used in the Civil Engineering program at Cal Poly SLO.  I loved it then, and I still use it, but since I'm not in engineering I just use it to balance my checkbook and calculate sales tax for my business.  I actually prefer the RPN over the 'normal' way, but it's no big deal.

Jack

[vernecarty]

Yes! Yes indeed! It was made by Texas Instruments! It says so right on the calculator!    Thanks for the correction Retread...such a long time ago....
 I also still have a fully functonal HP 11C...gotta love that inverse Polish notation...

Okay, now I am jealous, the 11C is a great calculator.  However, the one that I really wanted was the 16C.  It was the same style as the 11C, and had the capability to use binary, octal, and hexadecimal as well as good old decimal.  By the time I went to buy one they were discontinued, so I bought a Sharp EL-545 calculator that also works with these different bases of numbers (this is the main calculator that I use today). However the Sharp lacks all the fancy bit logic, bit shifting and bit masking operations available on the HP.  The HP was even able to work with 1's complement, 2's compliment and unsigned arithmetic. It was the perfect accessory for the assembly language programmer.   Now, I am going to have to go on eBay and look for a 16C as well.  Actually the HP 16C may be my all time favorite calculator.

Interestingly enough the HP 12C (a financial calculator of the same style as the 11C and 16C and from the same era) is still in production today (over 20 years after initial introduction).  I guess that more people must be interested in financial operations than in bit level operations.

Can you still really get an HP 12C?? Whoa... Nelly!! I am going to have to get me on of those!!
Verne
p.s should make a nice companion for my 11C don't you think?  

You may have to act quickly to get an original version of the 12C.  The last time I checked (about a month ago), I saw two versions of the 12C, the original brown and gold one, and a newer silver one with new functions and the ability to use algebraic notation in addition to RPN.

I found a site that was selling factory refurbished ones and immediately snapped one up. The new platinum model looks pretty snazzy but I wanted the original model...sentiimental I guess...
Verne

[d3z]

I have an HP 49G sitting right in front of me.  The first thing I did when I got it home was disable the stupid "algebraic" mode, so I could use the reason I bought it: RPN.

The software calculator I use on the computer is also RPN.

Interestingly enough, one of HP's oldest calculators (I believe their third model) came only with algebraic entry (this was a $5,000 calculator that took a lot of desk space).  The started using RPN in later calculators because people preferred it.

Now that TI has taken over the calculator world, RPN is hard to find.  HP did finally come out with a new calculator, but I haven't seen it yet.  I will probably get one at some point.

[retread]

I have an HP 49G sitting right in front of me.  The first thing I did when I got it home was disable the stupid "algebraic" mode, so I could use the reason I bought it: RPN.

The software calculator I use on the computer is also RPN.

Interestingly enough, one of HP's oldest calculators (I believe their third model) came only with algebraic entry (this was a $5,000 calculator that took a lot of desk space).  The started using RPN in later calculators because people preferred it.

Now that TI has taken over the calculator world, RPN is hard to find.  HP did finally come out with a new calculator, but I haven't seen it yet.  I will probably get one at some point.

Now here I go drooling again.  The newer one is the HP 49G+ (made by Kinpo Electronics, and sold by HP).  It is supposed to be 4 to 7 times faster than the 49G, accepts SD memory cards, has USB and IR connectivity.  This may well be the most powerful calculator available today.  But still I really don't need that type of sophistication, and would take a 16C over the 49G+ any day.  The 16C was definitely a unique calculator.

[H]

Two questions:
1. What is RPN? (please forgive my abysmal ignorance!)
2. What does all this have to do with "Where are they now?"  

Lord bless!
H

[Scott McCumber]

Stephen, the Davids, Verne, Retread and assorted other braniac geeks  ,

Thought you'd find this interesting:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031211/ap_on_hi_te/biggest_prime_number_9

Newly discovered prime number. What's interesting is how they found it. Seems they are using the pc's more and more for large date searches these days (SETI, number searches, etc).

Kinda cool

Scott

PS - Can't get that link to stay whole. You might have to cut and paste.

[d3z]

2. I am now a believer in evolution.

You sound more likely to be a believer in "devolution".  I am a strong believer in this.  Basically it states that over time, things get worse and worse.  If you don't come in with the standard evolutionary bias, the response is usually, "Duh."

Man's arrogance claims that we are smarter than we've ever been.  Collectively, yes, but there are also a lot of us.  But just watch Southern Califorian's trying to drive in the rain.

[brian]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031211/ap_on_hi_te/biggest_prime_number_9

looks like this got the link working. you have to hit the 'Insert Hyperlink' button and put those url brackets around the whole link. i'll take the liberty of doing so to your original post.

and the guy in the article is right on. finding a prime number millions of digits long is really awesome, but the way they linked up hundreds of thousands of regular ole pcs from all over the world to compute this is far more interesting. distributed computing power steadily approaches the computing power of the 'neural network' in the human brain. what happens when computer catch up to us in thinking power will doubtlessly revolutionize our long-standing perceptions of the human soul. some experts give the projected date for reaching that threshold within the next 10-20 years. personally, i look forward to the day the first computer asks us where it came from. interesting times ahead...

brian

[Scott McCumber]

Hey, B! Of course I didn't mean to leave you out of the Braniac/Geek category!

Read another article today that stated someone succeeded in capturing light for a fraction of a second. Another tiny step towards quantum computing and AI.

Alas, if only I know what that REALLY meant!

S

[Oscar]

Marcia,

I the article you posted, it said,

"So even "fixin' to" becomes "fidden to" or "fith'n to." And fixin' to where did that come from, anyway?

"Who knows?" Dr. Bailey said.

Well, I knows.

Fixin' to came in through the kitchen door.  In the American South people used to say I am going to fix dinner.  What fix means in that context is "prepare", as in "I am going to prepare dinner".

So, I'm fixin' to go home simply means I am preparing to go go home.

I was born in the great state of Texas, but a lack of jobs brought my family to California when I was a toddler.  
I grew up surrounded by Texans, (except for my Dad, who was born in Oklahoma).  He grew up in Texas though.

I heard Texas twang day and night, plus we watched country music tv shows and listened to country music on the radio.

I speak standard English, mostly, but I do like a good lively "toon" and sometimes read "noospapers".  I stayed in a HOtel last summer.

I really do not like to watch WWF "rasslin" on TV at all.

A few years ago I visited my uncle in east Texas.  (that is near China I hear)  After a few days in that speech enviroment I called home and left a message on the machine at my house.  My wife played it for the kids when they came over..."Hey listen to Dad, can you believe this?"

Seems my speech patterns go south whenver I get around those folks.

The folks that wrote that article haven't seen much of Texas.  Most folks think it is barren because they have just seen the far western part, or the part US40 goes through.

In the middle there is a huge region called the "hill country" Rolling hills covered with woods...beautiful.

Down east near "loosiana" is the "Piney Woods" region.  Rolling hills covered with pine forests.  It's all second growth nowdays, but in my grandfather's day the trees were huge original growth.  A far cry from barren flatlands that most think of when they see the word Texas.

If you ever saw the movie, "Leap of Faith" with Steve Martin you have seen the town I was born in.  "Rustwater Kansas" was actually Plainview, Texas.  They still have "Rustwater Tigers" painted on the water tower.  (The place is so flat that every town has to have a water tower so you can get some water pressure.)

In case you haven't heard of Plainview, (though I can't imagine how anyone doesn't know of such a metropolis), it is 27 miles west of Floydada, and about 30 miles east of Matador.

God bless,

Tawm Mayadux