In 1976 or so I "automated" some of our battalion maintenance paperwork with a TI programmable (perhaps an SR-56 -- $140 -- http://www.datamath.org/SCI/WEDGE/sr-56P.htm ) allowing me to do in a few hours what used to take a whole day. A few months ago I picked up an *eight dollar* programmable with integration and differentiation as well as the usual trig, log, and statistical functions..
I still have the $800 TRS-80 Model 100 I bought in 1985. 16K! 8 lines of 40 characters! Built in 300 baud modem! I bought one (working) at a Ham Radio fleamarket not long ago. For $20. Sic transit investmentae yesteryear. Cortland KA5S/6 http://www.ti59.com/history.htm > [Original Message] > From: Pettit, Ghery <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Date: 4/4/2008 10:44:51 AM > Subject: Completely off topic, but this came from a discussion at work today... > > We all get excited about Moore's Law as it relates to shrinking feature > sizes on chips, etc. But, have you stopped to think about what the cost > of our toys has done over the years? > > The HP-35 pocket calculator came out in 1973 (fall of 72?). The initial > price was $395. Now, $395 for a pocket calculator would seem high > today, but stop and think about what that represented then. When I > graduated from college in 1975, the typical starting salary for a EE > graduate was about $1000 per month. Gross. Before taxes. Probably > something less in 1973. That HP-35 represented 40% of a new EE's salary > for a month in 1975. And people bought them. Would you pay 40% of your > monthly salary for a pocket calculator today? Would you even pay that > much for a laptop computer? > > When it comes to computing devices, these are the good old days. > > Have a nice weekend. > > Ghery S. Pettit, NCE > Intel Corporation > > - > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > 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 - 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
