In my class last year, my teacher had one hanging on the wall in a frame. On the frame, in big red letters, it read INCASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS.

It was pretty funny, considering she had to explain why a ruler was in a box on her wall to the class (mostly everyone had no clue what it was). :D

at least i know what one is! My dad has one in his desk. He never got around to a lesson in slide rule operation, though.

Of course, this is the same guy with two functional teletype machines. Giant steel monstrosities one could use to communicate between basement and loft.

I remember that we had a thick book of tables for sines and cosines, but I don't remember much more about mathematics. I sucked at it.

Beginning in seventh grade, we were allowed to use calculators. We were encouraged to buy "scientific" calculators, thus the TI-30.

Graphic calculators came out while I was in high school, but, unlike Alex, I didn't have one. It did seem to me, though, that the students who had them were at no advantage.

So, you don't have to graph sines and cosines? Just what DO you do in math classes these days?

Wish I could help. All I can do in this thread is add my voice to the many who say that I used a slide rule in AP Calculus. I've never used a graphing calculator. Kids today...

For the most part the only thing me and my friends used our graphing calculators for was programing games into them. It was a good exercise. And then when we made it to the state math team competition* we wrote a virus into one of our games (it was a version of Defender) and spread it around the competition when we used the IR port to share the program with other people.

Much fun.

(where we were again not allowed to actually use the calculators during the competition.)

As I recall, though, the actual need to graph things generally wasn't very big once past the initial trig and calculus instruction and once you were into three dimensional equations the calulators weren't useful at all (though maybe they are now).

They were shorter and/or classes were longer.

The main thing I used my graphing calculator for was to cheat. I'd type in the key notes, then wrote a program that made it look like I was erasing the memory (in case anyone ever tried to call me on it).

Of course, by the time I was done taking the time to type in the notes, I memorized them. So I rarely actually used the illicit information on a test.

Other than that, my TI-85 was great for playing mine sweeper and snake.

We have to graph them, but there are also equations and problems where you can use your calculator to quickly find the answer.


BarTopDancer, you are probably right. Our classes are 2 hours long, but we don't normally use the entire period for the tests (which are normally around 30 questions)

Alex, one of the main reasons I'm looking at the 89 is that it has the ability to do 3D equations, which would be useful in the future for me.