Nostalgia

[Harke the Boeotarch]

 

[EddMarkStarr]

I used to use a slide rule in school, until the introduction of the Bowmar pocket calculator hit in 1972.

By 1973, the electronic calculator was changing the scholastic landscape, forever!

 

[Natello4]

Wow. Calculators already in the 70s! Maybe you have a fun memory of using it during the first days, Edd?

He's holding it like it was a smartphone, too.

 

[me203]

It's interesting--although not surprising--how calculators went from expensive tools to every day objects in a relatively short time...

One memory: how horrified my mother was when I admitted that I was using a calculator for my homework in high school. She was perhaps a bit more accepting when I told her the teacher actively encouraged them. Rationally, by the time you reach alegebra, you know enough about basic arithemetic that you don't need to go on doing it manually.

 

[me203]

He's holding it like it was a smartphone, too.

I'm now imagining this.

Smartphone inventor: "I wonder how people should hold these?"

Over lunch, inventor pages through old magazine and sees 1970s calculator ad. "Aha!"

 

[NotHardUp1]

My grandmother returned to college when her husband died unexpectedly at age 64. She was 59. It was 1969.

For the next five years, she commuted to a regional state university, and ultimately took a BS in Business Administration.

As she took Trigonometry, she needed to buy a calculator, so bought this TI 2500 from our local office supply store sometime in 1972 or after:



The LED display was very hard to read and literally impossible to read in sunlight.

The shocking thing was that I remember flipping it over and seeing the price sticker stitll on it.

It cost $109.

I'm certain Grandmother had to buy it on payments back then.

 

[EddMarkStarr]

Wow. Calculators already in the 70s! Maybe you have a fun memory of using it during the first days, Edd?

He's holding it like it was a smartphone, too.

The calculator craze quickly escalated as expensive brands like Bowmar and Hewlett-Packard were joined by less expensive brands like Texas Instruments. The arrival of pocket calculators became a "guy-thing" with price becoming a status-thing. Yes, these tools were great for math and science work but because calculators were always in view, even when not in use, the status of these expensive toys took a toll on poor kids in my school.

The big event hit by Christmas 1976, that was the first time I saw a calculator by Casio, the brand that set the calculator market on fire!

 

[Dargelos]

If you couldnt afford a calculator and couldnt even afford a slide rule, you used a log book.
These books made it not too hard to do complex calculation using simple addition. It was worth learning how to because only log books were allowed in an examination, anything more modern was considered cheating.

 

[smokeshadow]

The calculator craze quickly escalated as expensive brands like Bowmar and Hewlett-Packard were joined by less expensive brands like Texas Instruments. The arrival of pocket calculators became a "guy-thing" with price becoming a status-thing. Yes, these tools were great for math and science work but because calculators were always in view, even when not in use, the status of these expensive toys took a toll on poor kids in my school.

The big event hit by Christmas 1976, that was the first time I saw a calculator by Casio, the brand that set the calculator market on fire!

When I was a Freshmen in college (1973-1974), there was an EE (electrical engineering) major that lived several doors down the hall in the dorm I was in, who had been on HP's want list for one of their new, programmable calculators for 6 months. I seem to recall that he had made a downpayment of some $ 400.00 to get on the list and owed an additional $ 300 upon delivery. Due to his major, I'm guessing that he made VERY good use of that calculator.

 

[PalacePaul]

I've heard about log books but I've never seen one.
@Dargelos Funny that you found one in Spanish

 

[Kulindahr]

If you couldnt afford a calculator and couldnt even afford a slide rule, you used a log book.
These books made it not too hard to do complex calculation using simple addition. It was worth learning how to because only log books were allowed in an examination, anything more modern was considered cheating.

View attachment 3187008

My high school trigonometry text had a log chart in the back.

("Log book" to me means the book a skydiver has for recording jumps.)

 

[Kulindahr]

When I was a freshman in college (1973-1974), there was an EE (electrical engineering) major that lived several doors down the hall in the dorm I was in, who had been on HP's want list for one of their new, programmable calculators for 6 months. I seem to recall that he had made a downpayment of some $ 400.00 to get on the list and owed an additional $ 300 upon delivery. Due to his major, I'm guessing that he made VERY good use of that calculator.

By the time I was taking university physics, a programmable calculator was required.

 

[Kulindahr]

In a university education course in 1989 we had to learn to use these because there were still school out there that relied on them. One guy hated them so much he said he'd buy the school something newer!
It's surprising how many places you can still find them in use, though their companion type that you can put anything under and project it are more common.

 

[MusicMan321]

 

[smokeshadow]

^^and the requisite companion projector

 

[EddMarkStarr]

If you couldnt afford a calculator and couldnt even afford a slide rule, you used a log book.
These books made it not too hard to do complex calculation using simple addition. It was worth learning how to because only log books were allowed in an examination, anything more modern was considered cheating.

View attachment 3187008

Thank You - Thank You!

Yes, talk about nostalgia. Calculators were banned from exams, text-based Logarithm Tables were what we used in science and math exams.

When I signed up for "Advanced Placement" classes and College Entrance Exam testing, like the SAT's, calculators were not allowed.

Everything the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) offered cost money, and they were making a killing in the world of education in the United States.

 

[me203]

View attachment 3188029

In a university education course in 1989 we had to learn to use these because there were still school out there that relied on them.

A lot of my high school teachers in the 1980s sure relied on overhead projectors. Some even had the classroom arranged with students viewing a side wall, instead of a chalk board, with a overhead projector/screen combo. It's a weird thing as I think of it now, but I remember overhead projectors probably as early as elementary school, but--while used--I don't remember any teacher using one as much as high school teachers. I now wonder why there was such heavy use of these--I have a vague sense the chalkboards weren't that good, which might have been an issue. Then, one teacher told me he liked it because the projector kept him closer to the class than the chalkboard allowed, which allowed him at one point to keep better control of the class. (He was pretty mild mannered.)

I remember sjupporting items, like special pens with water soluable ink. (I remember one teacher had occasional problems with mxiing up the overhead projecotr pen with a permanent Sharpie.) And I even saw a gadget that could be put on an overhead projector and connected to a computer. I magine that was $$$$ and probably didn't age too well, given that it was designed for the limited computers of the 1980s.

It's surprising how many places you can still find them in use, though their companion type that you can put anything under and project it are more common.

I remember those as well, although they were much rarer. Maybe even one per school rare.

 

[PalacePaul]

View attachment 3188029

In a university education course in 1989 we had to learn to use these because there were still school out there that relied on them. One guy hated them so much he said he'd buy the school something newer!
It's surprising how many places you can still find them in use, though their companion type that you can put anything under and project it are more common.

Professors still used these at my university in the early 2000s

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

Professors still used these at my university in the early 2000s

At TUDelft post 2003 too.

I would like a projector once to create a blow up of a small image so I can use that to make a painting.

In architecture folks do everything with complicated digitaal electronics that you can do just as well most of the time by far more primitive means.

 

[LilBit]

Professors still used these at my university in the early 2000s

I finally threw out my overhead slides in 2013. Up until then, I still occasionally had classrooms without any technology more advanced than an overhead projector.

And I had a professor in grad school who would still use the old carousel-style projector to show slides of artwork. She insisted that digital images couldn't capture the richness of the original work the way photographic slides could.