CB -
My husband, who aced every calculus class he ever took, only scored around 650 on the math SAT. He's younger than me. I think he used a slide rule in high school, but a calculator in college.
I bought a calculator, finally, I think in 1973. It cost $125 and I think it did have more than four functions, but I really can't remember. I was making $5 an hour then but minimum wage was $1.25, so it cost a hundred hours work before tax for an entry level worker like most college students - as Mq says, close to a month's salary.
I think I bought an HP35 calculator in 1972 for $395 when my rent share was $46 a month and I tended to collect up several weeks' paychecks before bothering to deposit them in the bank. Designed to fit in Bill Hewlett's shirt pocket, the HP35 is another reason why Carly F. has no business at HWP. -g-
When I missed a question on the math SAT, it was one they didn't count, but the HP35 wasn't so lucky as it was recalled for a tendency to say that the natural log of e was 1.01.
I was just able to go to my bookshelf and pull off two books of math tables, 5 and 7 place logarithms of numbers from 1 to 10,000. They sure haven't seen much use lately. I no longer have any of my slide rules within reach, but I still hold a grudge after 38 years that my Dietzgen bamboo premium slide rule was imperfectly aligned. -g-
Regards, Don |
