[wagglebee]

My father is in corporate finance and has always like gadgets. I remember in about 1973 when he got his first calculator and IIRC it cost over $500 which was a ton of money at that time. And then in 77 or 78 when the Radio Shack TRS 80 computers came out and they cost more than most cars did at the time. But he still has his slide rules in his desk somewhere, I doubt they even make them anymore and I'm certain that almost nobody under the age of 50 would have the slightest idea how to use them.

[jimtorr]

........almost nobody under the age of 50 would have the slightest idea how to use them.

I took an advanced mathematics course in high school in 1971. One of the subjects was slide rules and related computational aids that were about to be relegated to the dust bin.

I still have the slide rule I bought for the class in storage someplace, and the big CRC mathematics & chemical reference book that went with it. I doubt that I remember how to use it.

[John O]

I'm certain that almost nobody under the age of 50 would have the slightest idea how to use them.

I'm 45. I still remember some of it. Got one around here somewhere (in a nice gray plastic case)

[Old Student]

"And then in 77 or 78 when the Radio Shack TRS 80 computers came out and they cost more than most cars did at the time."

More like '76. I had one of the first 500 built, and they cost $600. Cars were in $2700-5000 range then, IIRC. (New, as my TRS 80 was.) 4K level-1 basic. Later I expanded it to 16K, when the price of memory dropped to where that was $100. I had the $1000 expansion box a couple of years later, a year or so after they were introduced; it was pretty flakey, and I never got a floppy drive for it, but I had 48K of memory by then.

I wanted one of the HP calculator wrist watches; those were also about $600, now you can get something like it, but much more powerful, for a couple of dollars. My, how times change.

BTW, my old TRS-80 is still functioning at my BIL's house. He had to put about $200 into repairing it after a lightning strike in the early 80's, or so I'm told.