[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

My father bought me an abacus for my 5th birthday. In fact, I still have it. When some NK or Chinese fires a EMP burst I guess we will have to return to using a abacus.

[mike_9958]

I went high tech - I got a slide rule.

[Viking2002]

My first computer was a Digicomp I from Edmund Scientific. I got it for Christmas when I was five:

"But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away, for his name is Obama."

[arthurus]

I got pretty good with one of those when I was stationed on Okinawa in 1970. When I went to the counter in a store I and the clerk would place our bead frames on the counter and both would tot up the items to be purchased and each present the abacus with the finished calculation for the other to inspect. If they agreed the clerk punched it into the cash register and the transaction was complete. If they disagreed then we both flicked the beads again until agreement.