Hi Piotr. I worked in Poland for about 14 months in total, around 1980 - 85, in Kielce and Warsaw.
I could buy Black and Decker electric tools, Levi and Wrangler jeans, and of course Polish Crystal, at about 70% of the UK price in the Pewex (Hard Currency) shops in hotels, but had to pay in Dollars. Shops and offices in Poland then were still using the Abacus, with astonishing skill and efficiency! I bought some calculators to give away, but they weren't used, they preferred to use the Abacus, always on the desk, always available, very quick and instant with just a couple of flicks of the fingers, with permanent memory of last input or result. Compare with finding in a drawer, picking up, switching on, pressing fiddly little keys, squinting at LED displays, writing down results, switching off, and replacing in drawers. Not to mention batteries and cost of those. So impressed, I used to import abaci (sp?), which I was buying for 70p, about $1.40. Sorry to extend the off topic, but I just loved those days. Chris. Chris Duprés Compliance Engineer Elekta Limited Linac House Fleming Way Crawley West Sussex RH10 9RR www.elekta.com tel: +44 (0) 1293 654311 fax: +44 (0) 1293 654260 - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc
