That thought, and table usage [3-dig vs 4-dig, etc], had crossed my mind, as well. Students were taught to use slide rules and/or tables and hand-work, when I was in school. There were some expensive, fancy, and heavy hand-crank machines one could use to get multiplication and in very rare cases I only heard about but never saw, division. Computers were expensive, distant, and unobtainium for us until the advent of HP 2000F (and later -G) timesharing services.
Jon
I had a couple, i was using pencil and paper more (had to show calcs). A few years later my dad got an HP 35, then traded it in for a HP 45 (gods own calculator, nothing better since).
I still have a few HP35's, and still use one of them.
The "new" HP35 is awful, a parody of the original.
John
We were forced to buy a slide rule, but were forbidden to use it anywhere. Teachers can be strange animals..... The price then was about a weeks salary for my parent.
I wouldn't call it "awful". It's nothing like the original, but it is still RPN. I use mine every day (just killed one set of batteries). Oh, it's nothing like the 11C, either. That tiny battery lasted forever. The "new" 35 uses two CR2032s and "only" lasted two years.
I'll add my standard two cents here that while, yeah, the new 35 isn't awful, it's definitely not in the same league as the original either.
I seem to recall we had a thread about this a year or two ago... at that time I believe I mentioned that, when the original HP 35 was discovered to have a few bugs, HP contacted every registered owner and offered a free replace. When the new HP 35 was discovered to have rather more bugs, HP didn't even bother to keep a list of them on their own web site, much less offer replacements.
I switched back to my HP 50g... although the really short battery life with it bugs me too. (Someone decided to save a few pennies for HP -- while costing the user tens of dollars over the device's life time -- by going from a switching regulator to a linear. :-( )
---Joel
They needed *some* way to test out the time machine they had in the back of the lab!
Yep, agreed. Especially since it seems like at least 3/4 of the remotes that use AAAs physically have the room for AAs!
---Joel
Way into the let's look at this three times range. Was your parent's budget rather tight or was it a mighty nice slipstick?
My slipstick was about $30 in '70, though that was my 'salary' for about a week and a half. I certainly didn't have a family (just a college/books/beer habit).
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