Slide Rules Etc.

[Mike Hardie]

The first electronic calculator I saw was in about 1970, (Big step up from
the K+E Deci-Lon?) owned by a weatherman up north.  It had a red LED four
or maybe five digit readout and did the four basic math functions.  The
cost was just under $200.

A couple of months ago I bought a small solar powered calculator (Old one
was "liberated" by an offspring for homework) that does just about every
math function known to man, some a little awkwardly, the cost was just over
$10.

You can't beat the EA6B so long as you get the wind direction from the
correct side.  Sort of like the slide rule, you had to have a rough mental
picture of the result to see if a big error had been made. (or the order of
magnitude, etc)  "Calculator complacency" can result in missing this check.
 Like the final check before putting the plug in the wall after building a
'kit.

There's no doubt girls or something has changed - when flipping through the
cable TV channels just pause on any rock video program.

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