USA(aka Texas)/Canada

[al Hartman]

Dave S - machine language programming... Wow! I remember that. Did you have to use punched cards as well, and "drum line printers"? And a 'slide rule' to figure out logs?

Lord bless,
Marcia

     Cathy worked for Gospel Light Publications when we were newlyweds, and they sent her to IBM school back in the days of punchcards.  In early December the GLP staff would take big stacks of used punch cards into the break room, bend them and fasten them together in the shape of a large three-dimensional circle, then spray paint them green and add glitter and ribbons.  Every associate got to take home one of these wreaths for their front doors.

     In high school we used slide rules.  They were the only "calculators" we had, and we thought ourselves pretty speedy with them.  Tom Maddux must have used one, too, but I suspect his from West Texas was much larger than ours in Ohio.

al

[d3z]

In high school we used slide rules.

I still wear my slide rule watch.  It was intended for estimating things when flying in airplaines.  As such, it has markers for things like weights of gasoline and oil, and it is convenient for doing speed-distance calculations.

[sfortescue]

Years ago, perhaps it was in high school, I used to carry around a pocket sized primitive mechanical adding machine with metal sliders for digits, and a table of 4 place logarithms so that I could multiply by adding logs together.  Later, a small pocket sized circular slide rule replaced the adder.  When HP first came out with an electronic pocket calculator, my father bought one.  I think it was an HP-45.  Some electronic desktop calculators that I remember seeing at school or work at various times and places were: an HP-9900, I think (the number may be off), it had a small CRT display of the 4 numbers on the stack; a Wang calculator that had a briefcase sized electronics package that connected to 4 desktop keyboards with nixie displays so that 4 people could use it at the same time; then there were the Compucorp programmable printing calculators that had a surprisingly effective programming language that we students had fun programming; another of similar capabilities was made by Olivetti that had a large box for the electronics.  (The above calculators aren't in the correct chronological order, but my memory of time and dates is rather poor, so I probably wouldn't be able to sort them correctly anyway.)

My first electronic pocket calculator was a Sharp with an LCD display and scientific functions.  I couldn't justify the expense of an HP calculator nor carrying around something expensive that could be lost, stolen or damaged.  It was when I needed a programmable calculator for engineering work that I finally bought an HP-25, then a few years later an HP-29C which had continuous memory.  The present ubiquity of computers almost makes scientific calculators irrelevant, although several years ago I bought an HP-42S since it could do matrix and complex arithmetic.  I didn't see any reason to get the fancier model since complicated problems are better done with a real computer.

[retread]

With all of this calculator nostalgia, I got motivated to pull out my old Sharp PC-1211.  I was shocked to find out that the mercury batteries that it needs are not available due to environmental concerns with mercury.  I tried putting in some zinc air batteries (with similar voltage to mercury), and although they worked, I only got a few minutes use before the batteries died.  The PC-1211 was about the size of a handheld calculator, but was programmable in BASIC with a QWERTY keyboard and a 24 character display.  I will now resume my search for a better battery.

[sfortescue]

When the NiCad battery pack in my HP-29C died, I replaced it with a 6800 microfarad capacitor in parallel with a string of 6 assorted voltage-limiting diodes.  That way the calculator could be powered with the AC adapter.

[Joe Sperling]

When my Rector AC29 multi-functuator cribitarized, I replaced the coaxial unicator mode functional doxicator with a 13/32 node reculcating fimstinator. . People thought I had gone nuts and asked why I hadn't simply rekeyed the 15 tone humpcocapitulator like any normal person would do. To this day I'm not sure why either. But every time I juxtaposition the pre-fab modulator in my hybrid tribunal gropholocator I think of that!! LOL  
But we live and learn.

--Joe

[Scott McCumber]

With all of this calculator nostalgia, I got motivated to pull out my old Sharp PC-1211.  I was shocked to find out that the mercury batteries that it needs are not available due to environmental concerns with mercury.  I tried putting in some zinc air batteries (with similar voltage to mercury), and although they worked, I only got a few minutes use before the batteries died.  The PC-1211 was about the size of a handheld calculator, but was programmable in BASIC with a QWERTY keyboard and a 24 character display.  I will now resume my search for a better battery.

*errk* *agh* MUST . . . NOT . . . TEASE. . . THE NERDS!!!!!!

 

Just kidding, guys. Last resort of the intellectually inferior (but much better looking) masses!

[jesusfreak]

When the NiCad battery pack in my HP-29C died, I replaced it with a 6800 microfarad capacitor in parallel with a string of 6 assorted voltage-limiting diodes.  That way the calculator could be powered with the AC adapter.

Speaking of calculators, I just finished ghetto rigging my 10 MHZ TI-89 to accept a "memory upgrade" from RAM i stripped out of several TI-83+'s........now I can install my personal recode of BeOS and play nethack  .  

it is truly amazing the things you can do with cardboard, duct tape, and a soldering kit
--
lucas

[retread]

When the NiCad battery pack in my HP-29C died, I replaced it with a 6800 microfarad capacitor in parallel with a string of 6 assorted voltage-limiting diodes.  That way the calculator could be powered with the AC adapter.

Speaking of calculators, I just finished ghetto rigging my 10 MHZ TI-89 to accept a "memory upgrade" from RAM i stripped out of several TI-83+'s........now I can install my personal recode of BeOS and play nethack  .  

it is truly amazing the things you can do with cardboard, duct tape, and a soldering kit
--
lucas

I just use PocketRogue on my Palm (there is also a Nethack palm project underway).  I have seen an early Nethack on an iPaq (nice), but I haven't gone the WinCE route yet.

[jesusfreak]

When the NiCad battery pack in my HP-29C died, I replaced it with a 6800 microfarad capacitor in parallel with a string of 6 assorted voltage-limiting diodes.  That way the calculator could be powered with the AC adapter.

Speaking of calculators, I just finished ghetto rigging my 10 MHZ TI-89 to accept a "memory upgrade" from RAM i stripped out of several TI-83+'s........now I can install my personal recode of BeOS and play nethack  .  

it is truly amazing the things you can do with cardboard, duct tape, and a soldering kit
--
lucas

I just use PocketRogue on my Palm (there is also a Nethack palm project underway).  I have seen an early Nethack on an iPaq (nice), but I haven't gone the WinCE route yet.

whoa! I remember playing Rouge on my first UNIX box    now that is true old school. (nethack is still better   )

--
lucas

[retread]

When the NiCad battery pack in my HP-29C died, I replaced it with a 6800 microfarad capacitor in parallel with a string of 6 assorted voltage-limiting diodes.  That way the calculator could be powered with the AC adapter.

Speaking of calculators, I just finished ghetto rigging my 10 MHZ TI-89 to accept a "memory upgrade" from RAM i stripped out of several TI-83+'s........now I can install my personal recode of BeOS and play nethack  .  

it is truly amazing the things you can do with cardboard, duct tape, and a soldering kit
--
lucas

I just use PocketRogue on my Palm (there is also a Nethack palm project underway).  I have seen an early Nethack on an iPaq (nice), but I haven't gone the WinCE route yet.

whoa! I remember playing Rouge on my first UNIX box    now that is true old school. (nethack is still better   )

--
lucas

I still prefer the old rogue with the double haste bug (somewhere around 1980 if I recall correctly - it was included with BSD 4.2).  I could regularly get in and out even without double haste.  Although I do like the "Shift" and "Ctrl" moves of the newer rogues (definitely speeds up the game). The deepest I got was somewhere in the 700s - I was trying for level (or should I say depth) 1000 when the game crashed.  Eventually I got bored and hacked the encrypted wizard's password for some testing of theories.  You still can't go wrong with the original. Ah, the good old days.

[retread]

The other day I was trying to figure out why base 10?  When I asked my son a math question, I figured it out.

I assume that it was the same reason that a lot of cartoon characters would use base 8.

[jesusfreak]

To be annoyingly technical - I would hold that it is the (under peaceful conditions) religious
leaders who choose the numeration system of the 'culture'.

--
lucas

[rylan]

Canada is ok, but they seriously need to recognize that they are a member of the North American continent and not the European Union. I'm absolutely amazed at how often they'll side with Europe over the US. Then they have the nerve to give us madcow. Thanks a lot Canada!!!        

[al Hartman]

Canada is ok, but... they have the nerve to give us madcow. Thanks a lot Canada!!!        

     Thanks to the latest scientific development, that is no longer the problem it was.  Researchers have not eliminated Mad Cow, but they have managed to dilute it extremely, so that now we're merely dealing with Miffed Cow.

 ;)al