Re: Not Just the US With Education Problems

"Paul J Gans" <gans@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:g2f2bi$87q$4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Walter Bushell <proto@xxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <6ask8qF38sc6eU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"alwaysaskingquestions" <alwaysaskingquestions@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Some of it may have to do with personal inclination - I have always been
fascinated with both puzzles in general and with knowing how things
work; in
my first job - just before the introduction of desktop calculators - I
had
to learn how to use a slide rule and was thought it was a fantastic
invention.

Just how old are you. Frieden calculators from the styling my predate
WWII and maybe I.

The Friden calculator was in major use up through 1970. I recall
doing the calculations for a paper on one in that year.

Fridens had 10 digit keyboards and the high end models could
automatically extract square roots of 20 digit numbers.

See <http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/fridenstw.html> for
a view of a late model.


I was at an advanced summer school for teens in 1961 and we had to do orbit
calculations with calculators (!). During the course of the programme we
took delivery of the latest Friden calculator that could extract square
roots. For amusement one day we tried taking concatenated square roots of a
number several times then squared it back up again. And that's when we
learned a practical lesson about the meaning of precision and significant
digits in computations.

We also used an early digital computer, the Bendix G-15, about the size of a
large freezer.

The mechanical calculator is arguably the finest example of the
mechanical engineer's art. They were enormously complex
instruments powered by an electric motor. The insides were
a three dimensional mass of gears, levers, cams, and whatnots.
The reference above shows some "inside" shots.

The pocket calculator killed them off fairly quickly.

--
--- Paul J. Gans



--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)

.

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