On 2010-10-19, sf > wrote:

> Have you seen those scientific calculators? You needed to learn how

I have a classic, the HP-48GX (almost as cool as a Curta), a plotting
calculator required for calculus and engineering back in the day. The
damn things had the computing power of an early IBM-PC XT 286.
Ancient by today's stds, it can still do stuff I have no clue about.
One cool thing I discovered, was you can dwnld programs from one 48 to
another via infrared. No wires. I still haul it out, now and then,
when I need to do some extended math or jes wanna flex my geezer brain
bag into old algebra/electronics stuff. HP's RPN (reverse Polish
notation) is actually handier for math than a std calculator and I use
it on my desktop computer, an old *nix application called dc. Texas
Instruments (TI) now dominates the scientific calculator landscape,
but their newer stuff is jes faster, not better.

nb