You young pups don't know what life was like before computers.
A calculator that was small enough to run off a 9volt battery was the high tech toy.
Wait until you get some really young pups around here who've never done math manually
It gets real interesting when I ask a clerk if the change given by the cash register is correct (for those in Britain, the 'Till'.) I've been suprised by the number who could actually do the math in their heads without using the old calculator.
Who here learned how to use a slide rule? Haven't seen one of those in a while.
Just about - I liked 'em - but they were just inventing pocket calculators when I was at school, do brits remember the Sinclair polish logic calculator that you assembled yourself...? LEDs were so cool, like owning your own personal Zylon (or however they're spelled).
Remember books of log tables, though? Seems to me I fell in between somehow - I never quite got my head around logs etc., but on the other hand I'm not quite young enough to think in metric either.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 9:37 am Post subject:
I learned how to use a slide rule, but that was more due to curiousity than necessity. I have to find where I put it.
I still miss tape drives. The kind where you could use regular audio cassette tapes. Not too fast, but man media was cheap when you got tired of those cassette singles
While we're scraping the algae off our nost, I've always had a thing about mechanical watches (as opposed to battery-powered). I really have no use for 'accurate to within 1 second a year' - clockwork watches are such a cool thing, and mine is a self-winder, so all I have to do is wear it and not lie still for more than 24 hours (not too hard, as I'm fitted with a catabolic power cell), and it never stops. Of course, when it's well wound it runs just that little bit faster, so it picks up about a minute a fortnight. But seeing people throw away a watch because it's cheaper to buy a new one than to replace the battery? Grumble grumble...
Meanwhile, strangely enough I was hankering after a slipstick the other week, for much the same reasons - could keep a little one in the pocket and do maths on the go without buttons, when the numbers are too fiddly to do in the head or on paper. Great for divison/square roots. I wonder if you can still buy them?
- padmavyuha
*EDIT* I'm currently buying on on eBay for £5! Found some very good websites about how to use them (e.g. this one) - I was very tempted by the Russian circular slide rules, but enough's enough, eh?
ok, so now we can install windows on our intel macs...
and people are excited about this.
WHAT???
i thought we wanted to NOT use windows. "Well, this means you can blah blah blah." Great. now programmers can "blah blah blah, just reboot into Windows"
sigh.
sure, it is a good idea, and yeah, probably good that apple is doing it rather than some third party, but reading the reports about it, you'd think the holy grail showed up.
it felt like at once there was a sigh of "IT IS ABOUT DAMN TIME YOU GUYS COULD RUN WINDOWS"
blink. blink.
why? so i can get spyware? oh, i know, play games! that are better on a console. um. some obscure programs? hm. i know, Openoffice! they'll never port that to a mac...
that being said, am i gonna show that to my roommate so he gets a mac instead of a dell? damn straight.
Joined: Nov 21, 2005 Posts: 1285 Location: Witless Protection Program
Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 1:46 pm Post subject:
jjmckenzie51 wrote:
It gets real interesting when I ask a clerk if the change given by the cash register is correct (for those in Britain, the 'Till'.) I've been suprised by the number who could actually do the math in their heads without using the old calculator.
James
My worst daily nightmare is: What happens when the electricty goes out for all the Cash Registers ( aka 'Till)? I don't think that any of the young clerks can make change, even with a calculator. It's sad during a power outage.
Want to try a test, try rounding up the change you give Clerk - so you don't get extra change/pennies. Funny to watch (I'll leave the example to the reader )
Philip (remembers buying his last Sliderule, and the first HP calculator for $350! )
While we're scraping the algae off our nost, I've always had a thing about mechanical watches (as opposed to battery-powered). I really have no use for 'accurate to within 1 second a year' - clockwork watches are such a cool thing
Ooh, me, too. And it's almost impossible to buy them these days. I just HATE buying a watch that requires a battery replacement every so often, but I haven't been able to find a new mechanical watch that's inexpensive.
Edit: I just noticed I advanced to "Pure-blooded Human." Go me.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 7:21 pm Post subject:
LemonAid wrote:
Philip (remembers buying his last Sliderule, and the first HP calculator for $350! )
Out of curiousity, was the HP calculator RPN? I can't stand regular calculators any longer and mourn the fact HP's calculator products have just gone off and stagnated.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 7:22 pm Post subject:
jakeOSX wrote:
sure, it is a good idea, and yeah, probably good that apple is doing it rather than some third party, but reading the reports about it, you'd think the holy grail showed up.
Actually, the most interesting was from my boss who was wondering if this meant we still had to develop Mac software.
Sigh.
I can't wait until the marketing people now clamor to get rid of Mac software saying folks with Macs still have a solution since they can run Windows.
ok, so now we can install windows on our intel macs...
and people are excited about this.
WHAT???
i thought we wanted to NOT use windows. "Well, this means you can blah blah blah." Great. now programmers can "blah blah blah, just reboot into Windows"
sigh.
sure, it is a good idea, and yeah, probably good that apple is doing it rather than some third party, but reading the reports about it, you'd think the holy grail showed up.
it felt like at once there was a sigh of "IT IS ABOUT DAMN TIME YOU GUYS COULD RUN WINDOWS"
blink. blink.
why? so i can get spyware? oh, i know, play games! that are better on a console. um. some obscure programs? hm. i know, Openoffice! they'll never port that to a mac...
that being said, am i gonna show that to my roommate so he gets a mac instead of a dell? damn straight.
I really like the fact that you can run GNU/Linux on your MacIntel....
What are the odds that MacOSX 10.5 is the LAST version of MacOSX and that within two years there is no such thing as a Mac?
By removing the 'edge' that made Apple special they become nothing more than a high priced VAR. Think IBM.
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I don't think that any of the young clerks can make change, even with a calculator. It's sad during a power outage.
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