Calculator test

[AnnoyedOne]

(12-08-2024 08:13 PM)dm319 Wrote:  Was there software around at the time to do complex calculations on a PC or Unix?

I has access to two mainframes in 1980. A DEC-10 (punchcards) and PDP-11/70 (terminals).

We were taught FORTRAN (mostly for solving matrix operations) and BASIC. In my final year assembler on Zilog Z80 based CP/M 2.2 systems with two 8" single-sided floppy drives. I was running multitasking/multiuser OS-9 on my Motorola 6809 system with one 5.25" floppy drive at home and was already writing software in 6809 assembler. There was also the BASIC09 compiler for OS/9 but I never had that. I never used a UNIX machine but perhaps those had math software.

The home computers of the time were too slow/crude for serious work. Used mostly for games. Hence the HP-15C for math. I learned about PC/Apple computers at the time of their release but they were uncommon, had little to no software available, and were slow. The first PC I used (a PC/XT clone with a 4.77MHz 8086) was in 1986. I never used it for math (but did for PCB layout).

Later engineering software for PC's became available (a circuit simulator in 1989?).

As it turned out the HP-15C and desktop computers came out at around the same time. After a few years the latter were in common use. Calculators weren't really needed after that (except for HS level math). By the time the Intel 386-DX (on-chip FPU) came out it was "all over". HP got into the PC business in earnest around that time. Calculators (including HP ones) were marketed to HS students (think graphing and CAS).

These days serious math is done on a computer and calculators are used when that isn't possible/convenient.

A1

PS: As I recall there was a room full of "dumb" Televideo 910 terminals at the campus "computing center".

https://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/images/f...9462-1.jpg

Also large viewing windows into the (sealed) computer room. And other terminals scattered around the campus.

https://c8.alamy.com/comp/BRA4HK/1970-19...BRA4HK.jpg