Quote:
Originally Posted by Cloud
two marginally related comments:
2) My dad worked for a construction company estimating costs for large freeway projects. He had this HUMONGOUS calculator machine--about the size of a large typewriter, with about 300 tiny little buttons and (I think) a hand lever, to do the calculations (used in mid-60s). I should look and see if I can find a pic of that.
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I actually found one of those, like new in the box, at a junk sale. I picked it up for something like 10 bucks. Unfortunately, I don't remember what happened to it after the move.
What was fascinating to me was that here was this brilliant meticulously built device. I think I found a date on it somewhere close to 1970. Now integrated circuits technically go back to the 1950's, but it was the LSI chips in the early 70's that were first produced in large quantities and made the early calculators feasible.
So this wonderful shiny device was technically obsolete just a few years after it came off of the assembly line.
It's pretty much the same as what happened to wristwatches. A cheap quartz watch will always be more accurate than a traditional gear driven watch, no matter how well it is constructed.
In some ways this is sad, because circuit boards will never be as pretty as the inside of a mechanical watch.
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