For all the old geisers 5

[Baldy217]

Not too sure where to post this, so I'll do it here

If you remember the days when calculators took a whole room, well this thread's for you.



So what was it like having to do all the calculations by hand? I certainly can't imagine my life without a calculator, probably like most engineers.

Nowadays, people are complaining that we take computers for granted. Some say that many new grads rely to much on them and don't really grasp the theory they are applying.


So my question is : did they have that same argument for calculators back then too?

 

[IRstuff]

Why would you even think otherwise?

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[MikeHalloran]

In my second job, I analyzed a truss by hand. Luckily not a huge truss. You couldn't use a slide rule, because small differences between large numbers were important.

I would have killed for the programmable calculator I bought 25 years ago... but they didn't exist yet.

We did have a calculator... for the whole engineering department. It was a mechanical Friden thing, larger and heavier than an electric typewriter and with more keys. It could multiply, which was a big deal for a mechanical calculator, but it did it in a fairly primitive way, so it took a long time. Division took much longer, made it sound like it was going to spit a gear out, and took minutes. It was so slow that nobody used it much. One guy claimed to know how to use it, and would demonstrate it on occasion, but I don't think he really understood it at all.

Nobody trusted it, either, because it was too easy to not notice a missing keystroke in a long sequence... which was also a problem with the first electronic calcuators.

Actually, that first programmable calculator of mine taught me not to trust them, either. It used some of the user's registers for its advanced functions, so my first program that used those functions had a bug that drove me crazy for a while.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[zdas04]

I was in one of the last few class at the US Navy Nuclear Power School that used slide rules. A year after the change I stopped back by Vallejo on my way from Long Beach to Bremerton and had a chat instructor that I liked. I asked him what difference calculators made in the course. His response was that the material was identical, but the arithmetic on the tests didn't have to resolve as neatly (I don't recall the arithmetic resolving all that neatly in my course work). "F" still equals "m*a" whether you calculate it on a slide rule, a calculator, or a computer.

The biggest problem I have today is so many people (1) think that a computer model proves anything; and (2) have so little understanding of the arithmetic behind a computer program. When I was building computer programs in the 80's we had a saying that "if it is on green and white, it must be right" (referring to the preferred printout paper back then). That sentiment is so pervasive today that when I ask an engineer if he had verified that the assumptions underlying a program were in fact germane to the problem he was solving I get a blank stare.

The other day I asked an engineer if he had calibrated that a pipeline model matched field data and he was shocked that anyone could question a model. I showed him how to calibrate the model and found that a whole section had been wired wrong and that his node numbering scheme had fallen into a known bug in that particular software. He was scandalized to hear that there were known bugs in commercial engineering software.

In the days of slide rules and tabulated data we didn't understand a fraction of what can be included in a design today, but we did have enough sense to question an outrageous answer.

David

 

[IRstuff]

"...today is so many people (1) think that a computer model proves anything"

Frankly, that's nothing new, hence, my rather flip answer. 30 yrs ago, when our utility bills came on punch cards that weren't to "folded, spindled, or mutilate," there was always the ready answer of, "I sorry, that can't be, it came from the computer, so it can't be wrong."

But, the converse is that if everyone actually understood these basic concepts, we'd all have to be doing something else, because there would be so many more qualified engineers.

I think that you'll find the same basic arguments going back to the days when log tables were introduced, with cognizantis complaining that only logs calculated on a slide rule could be trusted.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[Zogzog]

"I was in one of the last few class at the US Navy Nuclear Power School that used slide rules."

Wow, you remember your class number. I was 8903.

 

[ajack1]

I think you might find it pre-dates calculators.

http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/luddite.html

 

[tygerdawg]

I agree with zdas04. I transitioned from sliderules to calculators in school. The professors drilled into us the need for problem setup: getting the equations down on paper and working through the problem without numbers, only variables. Then plug & chug at the end. But to always think about the answer as a validation.

I learned early on the importance of this and failure to trust calculators when my TI-30 failed on me during a physics exam on the topic of optics. I recall almost losing my self-control and hurling the calculator at the wall. But the Prof still gave me 85%-95% credit on all the problems.

I taught a "Intro to Engineering" class on occasion and always went through the same challenge with students. Tried to get them to understand that problem setup is 80% of the solution and I'd give a "B" grade if correct without numerical answers. But they all relied on calculators, religiously putting 5 or more significant digits on the written answers through all the sequential steps of the problem. And they thought I was a "hard teacher" because no one finished the tests on time. Duh.

And, gawdawmighty, you should have heard the wailing and gnashing of teeth when I gave them a simple word problem that had "real life" vagueness and gray areas to read, ponder, and make assumptions upon.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering

http://www.bluetechnik.com

 

[arunmrao]

I transitioned from sliderules to calculators in 1979 during my research years. Our instructors were very fussy about use of slide rules and log tables. Calculators were a rarity in India and expensive too.

It was the opinion of the faculty that no student should be at a disadvantage as he does not possess a calculator. Hence calculators were banned and use of calculators in exams was considered to be cheating!!

Chocolates,men,coffee: are somethings liked better rich!!
(noticed in a coffee shop)

 

[KENAT]

I'm not old enoguth to really respond but tygerdawgs response got me thinking.

Not sure in the US but in the UK in the 90s all the math & science exams were set up so that the process was more important than the result.

You got marks for the right equations, set up correctly, resolved simplified etc.

In fact I'd guess that less than half of all questions ended up with a numeric answer, it was more normally still in the form of X + 2/3 Y^-1 or the like.

I believe this was deliberately to make calculators of limited use and rely instead on the math.

However, it did little to hone long division or multiplication and I have to admit I'm depressingly poor at these, supposedly part of it is a learning difficulty I have but still, I don't think I'm where I should be.

By the way, I believe the spelling in the OP is wrong and it should be Geezer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geezer.

I'd have guessed geisers as a miss spelling of geyser and thought it was some joke about older people spouting steam & hot air or something.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[SomptingGuy]

My school was using log tables up to about 1982. The decision to allow calculators into school caused a lot of discussion (oddly enough, using log tables without knowing how they worked wasn't seen as a problem).

I guess the only times my calculator gave me a real advantage was that it was programmable. I could program it to solve equations iteratively and to calculate definite integrals - pretty useful for checking your hand-worked answers.

- Steve

 

[IRstuff]

Luddism, I think, is usually applied to any level of technology, but it's not really about conflict between art and mechanization, it more about the level of control that the technology imposes on you. We tend to look at technology as a means of controlling our environment, but Luddites point to the overall loss of control, since our control is indirect, and only applied through the technology. If the technology breaks, we are then helpless, e.g., our current usage of cell phones has reduced the need for pay phones, but if the cell networks went down, we wouldn't even be able to find a payphone.

The OP's concern might be cast in the light of the conflict between the artisans and the factories. What price did we pay for not knowing how to make our own clothes, and only buy stuff that are cranked out by the millions from factories? Or, knowing how to forge metals and make our own tools and utensils?

Similarly, I know a programmer who held great disdain for not only VB programmers, but even C programmers, feeling that a "true" programmer programmed in assembly language (he apparently was willing to concede to not programming in machine code) and that anyone who did otherwise was a hack, at best.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[msquared48]

I weht through College using the sliderule for 99% of my homework, being introduced to computers during the four years too.

Personally, I thought kompeuters were just for analyzing transparent aluminum.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[jmw]

At college we were taught to run an order of magnitude approximation first for example, simply by rounding up or down the actual numbers to simple whole numbers, mentally if possible but pencil and paper if not, so as to get an order of magnitude feel for what the right answer should be.
Then when the answer emerged we would know to trust it or not.
Fine for calculations where you use a calculator to step through the calculations.
But if you set up a spreadsheet solution or a use a preset calculation what then? should you know the mechanics of the calculations? shouldn't you know the limitations?


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[cvg]

In high school, we had to write a Fortran program and mail it to the state college where they would run it. I never did get my program to run because of fatal errors, bent cards, out of order etc. I vowed I would never use a computer again.

In college, the mainframe took the entire basement of the engineering building... I used to run card punch at the chemistry building, put the box full of cards in a bike and transport them over to the engineering building where they would run the program. Then cross your fingers and hope it ran.

I used my first PC on the first day I reported to work for my company. The old Geesers were still talking about the hand cranked Monroe that was in the back room (see the link). We had just two PC's in the office and the newbie college grad got to figure out how to use the new one. The surveyor had the other one to run cogo and nobody else could touch it. No Windows, no mouse. Eventually taught myself Autocad (version 2.1) using only the arrow keys... We ran our hydraulic analysis models on a mainframe and it took hours for the program to run. Eventually I created my own models that took all night to finish, even if they crashed. Sure makes you double and triple check your data input and assumptions before you hit "run"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_calculator

http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/calcs.html

http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/calcman.html

 

[zdas04]

Zogzog,
Class 7203 at Mare Island.

All,
I had a Mech of Matl teacher from Greece. This blind old jerk was probably the best prepared instructor I ever had. He had a bunch of rules, but the one that he never varied from is "if the final answer has more significant digits than the given data will support then the question will be graded zero". It was harsh, and after the first test the class size dropped from 40 to 15, but a whole bunch of years later I still make sure that the digits in the answer are supported by the data (i.e., if I use a pressure of "22" for a calculation then I can't give the answer as "44.123456789". This was an easy rule to implement with slide rules and log tables, but when your calculator gives you 9 decimal places, why not use them? [anyone who didn't see that statement as sarcasm, needs to think about it].

David

 

[Zogzog]

"Zogzog,
Class 7203 at Mare Island."

man I didnt know the Ark was nuclear . Just raxxing you, I use the same mantra on digits.

My company does testing of high voltage power systems, we have super fancy (And expensive) computerized test equipment that is run off a laptop, you got the idea. Millions of $ in test equipment.

We also have back on a shelf in the shop a "Carbon pile" from around the 1940's, a simpson multimeter, a hand crank TTR, a hand crank megger, and other relics.

When we get a new tech or engineer, he/she, regardless of experience gets to use the old relics for the first few months whenever possible. Then they take the data, manually check it against the specs, manually plot curves if necessary, and after this thread I might just take away thier calculators (The next new guy thanks you all)

Why? They need (IMO) to understand HOW and WHY the equipment works and what is really being done before they get to use the stuff that requires you to hook up the leads and press enter on the laptop.

 

[oldfieldguy]

Zog--

I was right. I figured your background out along time ago.

I too came up through the "loadbank and phase shifter" school of power system work, and I've worked on carbon pile voltage regulators.

I've watched many a young engineer multiply two numbers with one-decimal precision and proudly display his answer in two-decimal precision like it was significant...

I had to fire a technician once who could not test a relay without a rack of test sets and an automated test program, and he HONESTLY thought that he could "test any relay we have out there".

old field guy

 

[jmw]

Ah, the world's going to the dogs.
It wasn't like that when I was a lad.
Young people today....
(Now, where did I leave my teeth?)

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[zdas04]

jmw,
I think the real question is "how do you convince kids that the amazing tools available to them are just tools and they are still obligated to understand how the damn things work?"

There are so many cool things available today that weren't even imagined even 10 years ago, but relying on them without understanding the underlying arithmetic is the path towards engineering becoming a craft at the mercy of programmers.

I built a computer system in the early 80's that helped schedule and track preventive maintenance on oil field equipment. I ended up installing it at 36 facilities--6 successes and 30 miserable failures. By the last site I had figured out that the key element in success was the age of the maintenance foreman. If the foreman was over 50, then the installation would be a success. If he was under 40, I might as well go home. The guys between 40-50 had a chance, but not much of one. This seemed counter intuitive until I realized that the "old guys" were looking for a tool to help them do their job better. The others were looking for a program to do their job for them and weren't willing to put much effort into it. This discussion is the same thing. I don't lament the demise of the slide rule as the prime engineering tool--I always hated that thing. I'm lamenting the application of tools in lieu of understanding.

David