the techno-Wiz & the HP-12C

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a quote from A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe

The Wiz was young and fit, but he was neither manly nor unmanly. He was a financial officer and technogeek. He ran six miles before dawn every morning solely to keep the Wismer Strook cardiovascular system lubricated and tuned up for the long-term project, which was to live forever … He produced an HP-12C calculator from the side pocket of his jacket, and the ditch down the middle of his forehead deepened, and he began pecking away. That damned HP-12C was the Wiz in hardware form. It was the wizard's wand of the technogeeks. Charlie couldn't stand the sight of it because it utterly baffled him and made him feel how cut off he was from the new generation coming out of the business schools. Curious about the thing, he once asked the Wiz to let him try it for a second. He tried to enter 2 + 2. He couldn't get 4! Couldn't get 2 + 2 = 4! Turned out that with this damned machine, you had to enter +2 plus +2. It worked backwards or something.

{ maybe 2 Enter↑ 2 + }

BEST!
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