Thread:Mainframebabe/@comment-31592479-20170606150432/@comment-31592479-20170606150908

I've been having so much fun reading the comments on Old Tech We Have Known, that I wanted to boost again. So:  what's the best Olde Tech story you have?

One of mine:  my father was a physicist who worked in Richland, WA (where I was born) and Los Alamos, NM (where I mostly grew up). One day, he brought a REALLY COOL GADGET home from work:  it was. . . a CALCULATOR.

It was about the size of a couple of doorstop novels, and it could do square roots as well as basic functions! It wasn't ours, of course -- it was on loan from the lab, and we had to be very very careful around it, because it would cost $400 to replace. (In 1970's money, so figure about $4k now).

I never did learn how to use a slide rule. Sob.