Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/06/co-inventor-of-handheld-electr.html
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I know smart phones can calculate as well, but it’s not the same. We have lost so much.
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On behalf of my much younger self, came for the “BOOBIES”, was not disappointed.
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04 4377 
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So true. Back in the day, we weren’t allowed to have one of these in any math class. Over time, calculators without certain functions could be used to save time in checking our work. Now, many young people I meet can’t calculate a tip or make change without help from a device.
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I’m not as good at that myself as I was pre-calculator, but I used to impress my kids with my mental arithmetic skills.
The best argument (maybe the only good one) that I’ve seen for the superiority of the slide rule over the calculator was that the slide rule forced the user to become expert at approximating the answer, in order to place the decimal correctly. With a calculator, an inputting error could result in an answer out by orders of magnitude, that the user might not recognize as wrong.
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I was pretty much in love with my HP-35.
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All this makes me wonder, as Larry Miller does, how far the convenience will take them:
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You lucky bastard.
Not knowing Jack-The-Man-Squat about calculators, my parents (likely picked out by my mom due to its cuteness) got me this early Casio puppy when I was in high school:
Maximum six digit entry (which forced me to engage in real-time mental gymnastics when having to work with values of >6 digits). Note the absence of a floating point; only halfway making up for this, it did have an “arrow key” that, upon being pressed, revealed digits to the right of the decimal point results. One could not enter digits to the right of the decimal point. Three cheers for cost-cutting!
One other unusual thing about this guy: Its display was made up of fluorescent display tubes that – when kept on for several minutes – gave off an extremely high-pitched whine that my then young ears could pick out… and which gave me headaches.
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You poor sod.
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Into each life…
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