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   PID: Synchronet 3.21a-Win32 master/955e50fea Aug 09 2025 MSC 1942   
   TID: SBBSecho 3.29-Win32 master/955e50fea Aug 09 2025 MSC 1942   
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   FORMAT: flowed   
   -=> Mike Powell wrote to ED VANCE <=-   
      
    MP> When I was younger I remember some folks having those fancy TI   
    MP> calculators, and I also remember the "manual" was a pretty large one...   
    MP> in my memory, it was at least as thick as the calculator.  ;)   
      
    One of those teachers who make an impression on you was a calculus   
    teacher I had in college. He had an interesting approach to come at   
    problems from a different perspective to help you understand them.   
      
    In the movie "Ender's Game", when Ender says "The Enemy's Gate is   
    Always Down" and the perspective changes, I thought of his class.   
      
    We were encouraged to buy programmable calculators - the stepwise kind   
    where you could automate steps into the calculator as a procedure, then   
    enter a series of X and Y values and it would step through them - a   
    precursor to graphing calculators, as you'd have to plot them   
    yourselves.   
      
    The rich kids in the class brought HP 41C calculators. Oh, how I wanted   
    one of those! I had to settle for a cheap Casio programmable with 30 or   
    so program steps, total.   
      
    My professor's opinion was that computers would soon do all of the   
    grunt work that mathmeticians did by hand now. With computers, you'd be   
    freed to do the creative work and let the computers grind out the   
    results.   
      
    It struck a chord with me.   
      
    A year before, I flunked a senior year high school math class and   
    was required to take another course. The only one available mid-year   
    was Computer Problem Solving, which inspired me to work with computers.   
      
    If I hadn't flunked that class, I would have completely missed the   
    experience of the teacher who reinforced the value of computers as   
    tools of computation and might not have been as inspired.   
      
    Despite years of experience, I still enjoy doing computations and   
    turning the calculator upside down to spell 80081E5. I suppose your   
    inner child never *really* grows up.   
      
      
       
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