Calculating Tools We've Used

Do you remember those calculating tools we used when we were at St Joe ?

Today LC reminded me of the slide rule. Apparently he has kept his all these years. Keep it safely another decade, my friend, and it may well become a valuable antique.

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To be honest, I never really got the hang of slide rules. However I managed to get by as I was pretty nifty with the book of logarithm tables.

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Of course, electronic calculators began to appear on the scene in the 70s, but we weren't allowed to use them for our exams then. Silly rule. I recall I had a Casio scientific calculator for many years, but used it mainly for doing assignments at home.

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A certain classmate of ours possessed a more advanced HP calculator, which employed a special "Reverse Polish" method of data entry. At that time it was totally alien to me (I did get the hang of it much later, but just because I read Computer Science at university ... yup, I'm a slow learner!). Anyway that classmate later went on to get a first class honours degree in Mathematics, naturally.

In the late 70s and early 80s, even more powerful computing power was available, in the form of personal computers like the Apple II (and its various clones) , Tandy TRS-80 and Commodore Pet. Some of us may have used these for our A-levels and throughout tertiary education.

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An interesting footnote to this topic: when my daughter was in early primary school in the 90s in Singapore, she was taught to manipulate the abacus. It was meant to help fine-tune mental arithmetic in the young children. Who knows ... maybe newer generations will be asked to pick up the slide rule again.