Math Calculating with Slide-rule

[AssemblyLanguage]

I think teaching young students math with pocket calculators is a bad idea, compared to a slide rule, which really forces you to THINK about the problem, than just get dumbed down to a computer.

I Agree but I think the reason it was slide rules only when I was in school was economic. Calculators were new and expensive. Not everyone could afford one.

 

[Urwumpe]

I Agree but I think the reason it was slide rules only when I was in school was economic. Calculators were new and expensive. Not everyone could afford one.

We have some strange sort of pocket calculator cartell here in Germany. Everybody has to buy an expensive, obsolete pocket calculator (for 100€ upwards) for his kid for school, and not even one of the good ones. Which model depends pretty much on state and region, there is no competition between the manufacturers. The decision which model has to be bought is so intransparent that there are constant rumors of corruption. Lower Saxony for example always buys TI, other states have only Casio.

The most annoying fact of that: For about 30 € and some hours of school, students could build a much better computer themselves for that task. Without soldering and other complex tasks, just assembling and installing software.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Yes, same here. In our school district there is a Texas Instruments monopoly. The party line is "they will use it their entire school career", which it total BS. Grade 5 was another calculator purchase, and again in grade 8. I don't remember when she needed the graphic calculator :shrug: but in fairness she used it in college too.

The only up side was there was a class just on using the calculator. Which was kind of cool, saved me a lot of headache.

 

[Linguofreak]

Yes, same here. In our school district there is a Texas Instruments monopoly. The party line is "they will use it their entire school career", which it total BS. Grade 5 was another calculator purchase, and again in grade 8. I don't remember when she needed the graphic calculator :shrug: but in fairness she used it in college too.

For me I don't think calculators if any kind were allowed or required at any point in my schooling before we moved down to DFW as I was starting 10th grade. From that point, of course, avoiding TI on their home turf was impossible: I still have my TI-84.

But xkcd said it best:

https://xkcd.com/768/

 

[Notebook]

No calculators when I was a lad, did have log tables(and anti-log tables!) and sine/cosine/tangent tables. What fun.
Did use slide rules later.

Amazing this is still going around.

 

[jarmonik]

I think teaching young students math with pocket calculators is a bad idea, compared to a slide rule, which really forces you to THINK about the problem, than just get dumbed down to a computer.

I definitely agree with that one. One of the reasons why I actually created the software.

There is a new build 1.31 uploaded to my site.