To the moon on a pocket calculator

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 14:00:51 GMT, (Henry Spencer)
wrote:

In article ,
Charles Buckley wrote:
I looked at the 49G. Looked like a huge step back...
Maybe I just missed it in the docs and on the keypad, but I
could not find a unit conversion library, nor did it have that
cool equation library that was on the 48GX..

My recollection -- with the caution that it's been a while since I tried
out the 49G -- is that the units stuff is in there somewhere, but the
equation library is indeed gone. The equations are gone for the same
reason there is no IR communication: too many schools banned the 48s
from exams etc.

The 48s knew more engineering equations than I do, this many years out
of college. I would have loved them as an undergraduate, although we
were always allowed our slide rules and the CRC Handbook of Tables,
which did have a lot of equations (and tables of derivatives and
integrals), for most exams.

Actually, we had a high percentage of open-book and take-home exams in
engineering, because the School believed that's what work is like.
I'll admit I never had a closed-book exam in the workplace; NASA
supplied me with all the reference material I could use, even to the
point of buying it for me if the libraries didn't have it and couldn't
get it by ILL. Plus, we all had our own personal reference materials,
which would have made a pretty good engineering library if we'd
combined them.

The 48G didn't know the air data equations I used so much, but it was
easy to program them in and then use the usual standard atmosphere
tables.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

"A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all."
Anonymous US fighter pilot

In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote:
Actually, we had a high percentage of open-book and take-home exams in
engineering, because the School believed that's what work is like...

I dimly recall an article, years and year ago, written by some folks who'd
studied just how well various kinds of exams really evaluate knowledge of
the subject. They concluded that the clear winner for assessing actual
understanding, as distinct from just having a good memory, is a *timed*
open-book exam, where you can use any references you want but you're
scored on speed as well as correctness.
--
MOST launched 1015 EDT 30 June, separated 1046, | Henry Spencer
first ground-station pass 1651, all nominal! |

"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" wrote in message
.. .
|
| Sorta like the old IBM keyboards. Sure, other keyboards
| have the same keys, but not the same click.

I've managed to obtain six of those in working condition. I use one at work
and one at home, and the other four are for when those two fail.

| And you can use the old keyboards as lethal weapons if need be.

Their solidity and robustness is part of why I like them, and hopefully why
I'll die before all six of those keyboards succumb.

--
|
The universe is not required to conform | Jay Windley
to the expectations of the ignorant. | webmaster @ clavius.org

In article ,
"Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" writes:

"Brett Buck" wrote in message
...
Maybe I'm just old-fashioned (now that I'm in my 40's), but it just
doesn't seem the same. I get very frustrated with computer calculator
emulators - even the HP48GX emulator, that even looks right. I just seem
to think better while hitting real keys - or more accurately, keys that
feel right like the old HP.

Sorta like the old IBM keyboards. Sure, other keyboards have the same keys,
but not the same click.

And you can use the old keyboards as lethal weapons if need be.

But not as shields. The old IBM keyboards can be penetrated by a 9x19
(9mm Oarabellum) round at 10m. (33 ft) They're pretty reliable at 30m,
though, but the keycaps fall off.

(In the next issue of Guns & Old Computers: "The case for the .45-70
with reference to the need for a relaible one-shop stop of teh
COnvergent Technologies C-3." (Never was so much Evil locked into a
cardcage, with the possibile exception of a MicroNove trying to run
AOS)

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

"Ami A. Silberman" wrote in message
...
Well, there were Apples...

If Apple had existed and had been consulted for the CM or LM computer, NASA
would still be arguing over the color.
--
If you have had problems with Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC),
please contact shredder at bellsouth dot net. There may be a class-action
lawsuit
in the works.

"Jay Windley" wrote in message
...

"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" wrote in message
.. .
|
| Sorta like the old IBM keyboards. Sure, other keyboards
| have the same keys, but not the same click.

I've managed to obtain six of those in working condition. I use one at
work
and one at home, and the other four are for when those two fail.

Hmm, where exactly did you say you lived again.... :-)




| And you can use the old keyboards as lethal weapons if need be.

Their solidity and robustness is part of why I like them, and hopefully
why
I'll die before all six of those keyboards succumb.

So, who's named in your will?



--
|
The universe is not required to conform | Jay Windley
to the expectations of the ignorant. | webmaster @ clavius.org

Henry Spencer wrote:
In article ,
Charles Buckley wrote:

I looked at the 49G. Looked like a huge step back...
Maybe I just missed it in the docs and on the keypad, but I
could not find a unit conversion library, nor did it have that
cool equation library that was on the 48GX..


My recollection -- with the caution that it's been a while since I tried
out the 49G -- is that the units stuff is in there somewhere, but the
equation library is indeed gone. The equations are gone for the same
reason there is no IR communication: too many schools banned the 48s
from exams etc.


Stupid 48SX tricks..

One, the IR frequency was the same as used on a brand of car. You
could program the thing to unlock any of that brand of car.


Other stupid trick.. It also has the same frequency as some tv
remotes. Specifically, it had the same frequency as the tv in my
dorm. We would mess with the tv as we were doing our homework.

Henry Spencer wrote:
In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote:

Actually, we had a high percentage of open-book and take-home exams in
engineering, because the School believed that's what work is like...


I dimly recall an article, years and year ago, written by some folks who'd
studied just how well various kinds of exams really evaluate knowledge of
the subject. They concluded that the clear winner for assessing actual
understanding, as distinct from just having a good memory, is a *timed*
open-book exam, where you can use any references you want but you're
scored on speed as well as correctness.


Essentially the system used for the EIT and PE exams.

I've known way to many engineering students who could do an
exam, but even confronted with the same info the next semester,
had to relearn it.

Henry Spencer wrote:
In article ,
John Beaderstadt wrote:

*Were* there PCs in the late '70s? I honestly don't remember. I know
there weren't in the late '60s and early '70s.


In the modern sense of the term, no. But the first personal computers
started appearing circa 1975, and I believe the first issue of Byte hit
the stands in 1976.

Some describe the PDP-8 as the first PC, at least in the functional sense of
the concept. Not the first *home* computer, of course :-)

--
Dave Michelson

Henry Spencer wrote:

My recollection -- with the caution that it's been a while since I tried
out the 49G -- is that the units stuff is in there somewhere, but the
equation library is indeed gone. The equations are gone for the same
reason there is no IR communication: too many schools banned the 48s
from exams etc.

....Some of the calculators that came out with 16 to 24k text buffers
were also banned back when they first came out around 1980-1981, as
they could be used to store cheat notes. What got that ball rolling
was at Texas U, this geeky little dip**** asked whether these models
would be banned, and up until that moment the tenured,
behind-the-times mumbling old dork(*) had absolutely no clue that
anything existed more powerful and just as portable as the TI-30.
After class, he went to the department chairdip's office, and within
the hour a memo was circulated to all profs & TAs, and posted on all
bulletin board - the cork kind, mind you - that these calculators were
banned from the campus *period*, and anyone caught using them would be
brought before the Ombudsman.

....By the end of the semester, however, it became apparent that the
tenured fools had overreacted, and the memos were quietly removed and
forgoten. Not before most EE freshmen had gone and sold theirs, alas.

(*) Any of you Texas U EE types remember Dr. "Mumbles" Dougal? Only
second to Dr. Cogdell as being the most ****-poor excuse for a college
professor, much less human life. That's the "mumbling old dork" of
whom I refer to....


OM

--

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