Calculator Wars at your School

[JimP]

(06-25-2021 09:28 AM)Hans S. Wrote:  

(06-19-2021 02:07 PM)cesarb94 Wrote:  I'm interested in knowing what were the groups that fought each other arguing which had the best calculator at your school and also at which time frame.

There were no calculators at school. In 1973, when I finished school, I scarcely have heard about calculators. We had logarithmic tables and slide rules. The slide rule brand was "Aristo". And there were no wars about nothing, not even about fountain pens - but the best of them were Pelikan, then and now. Nowadays, I own about 30 calculators, 25 slide rules and a hundred fountain pens, mostly Pelikan, of course.

Hans

I was in high school in Scotland from 1973-1977 before moving to the US for college. We only had slide rules at the beginning of HS, but I was one of the first in my class to obtain a Sinclair Cambridge four-banger. But we had to learn to use log tables and slide rules and significant figures -- the math was what we needed to learn, the arithmetic was its tool. At uni, when calculus and statistics became more important in my major field of study, I was able to get a TI58, though in retrospect a 58C or 59 (more expensive!) would have been ideal. I graduated to RPN and HP -- several of them -- when I started earning money.... never looked back.... As for fountain pens, I was probably the only person in my college class who ever used one, and am still a collector of them, I have several Parkers, but my favorite is a LAMY palladium finished model with an italic nib, which I received as a parting gift as a result of a whip-around from my colleagues. So much nicer than a ballpoint, and a great contrast to the HP Prime sitting on the left of my home office standing desk!