zlacker

>>lewisf+(OP)
By ‘eck, when I were a lad we drew cumulative frequency curves and histograms by hand, and looked up statistical values in the back of a common formulae book.

When those tasks would have slowed class down — the teacher might not have wanted us to spend time drawing a curve when the real lesson was interpreting it — our teachers did it for us and put it on the class TV. Calculating statistical values was also done quickly with a $17 Casio engineering calculator.

TI-83s existed, but there was a culture in my school (ironically, a private one) that graphing calculators were a status-signaling more-money-than-sense thing. Too bad that such a culture isn’t ubiquitous.

— Sent from my iPhone XS

>>gorgoi+Cj
Anyone else use a slide rule in school?

I have tried to explain it to my wife, but she can't grok it. I'm going to have to buy one from fleaBay to get her to understand.

>>reaper+tm
Nope. Never even saw one used. I understand what it's FOR, but as a means of calculation they're obsolete.

When I entered the workforce and met engineers much older (say, born 10+ years before I was in 1970), they'd often have one in a desk drawer, but they weren't using them either.

>>ubermo+8Z
The real inflection point was around 1975. A few years before that and there wasn't such a thing as a pocket calculator. A year earlier and a 5 function (the basics plus square root) was still $100 in 1974 currency. Then TI scientific calculators were around $200 or so. Within a couple of years even HPs were at around that price point.

In college (late 70s) I still took a slide rule to exams as a backup; LED calculators could run out of juice. But I never used it.