Note that post #96 referred to $4,500 as the cost of attendance, not tuition, at Yale in 1970. Yale’s 2014-2015 cost of attendance is $63,250, of which $45,800 is tuition, according to http://admissions.yale.edu/faq/what-current-tuition-yale .
Oh, I’m sorry @ucbalumnus, I misread that. In that case, the COA is like 5 times what it used to be.
I have read articles stating that where it was possible to work enough to pay college costs back in our day it is no longer possible. Minimum wage was $1.80 my senior year of college in 1974-1975 (food service job- after midnight shifts at the snack bar, cleanup mainly paid $1.85 an hour). Late 1970’s my mom paid for a car for my medical school needs to get to hospitals- $3,000 including tax and license for a Ford Maverick (I’m sure she had a car loan, I had plenty of medical school loans).
A friend had a $100 calculator in college- as useful as an $8 one was several years ago. No such thing as a “scientific calculator”. And we sent men to the moon with less computing power than today’s calculators (or do I mean cell phones- they do everything now).
I’m about 10 years younger than you, and we had scientific calculators - with what they called reverse Polish notation.
wis-
My friend in college was the proud owner of a $100 casio calculator— that did the basic 4 functions only.
My Dad brought home the first calculator I ever saw when I was in high school - it cost $100 and did nothing. I didn’t get a calculator till I was in college and it was a basic one. When I wanted a good one I went to the science library and borrowed one of their reverse Polish notation calculators. (I graduated from high school in 73 and college in 78.)
I have a vague memory of a calculator with a stylus. Not that I used it, I would have been a little kid, but it must have been in the house.
Reverse polish notation? I thought that was a joke!
My husband is always switching our calculators to reverse polish. While I learned how to do that in college, I no longer use it regularly, but he does. It’s annoying to pick up a calculator and plug everything in only to figure out it’s not working the way you expect…
I love, love, love reverse polish notation on calculators. It is very efficient. Back in 2000, I brought my US-made Hewlett Packard RPN calculator home when I found out they were going for many times their original price. I also have an old HP business calculator, non-RPN. The buttons are still working just fine.
The only way my guidance counselor knew where I was applying was when I went down to the guidance office and asked for transcripts. In HS, May of senior year, they sent around a form to fill out to inform them of our choice. I had put Dharma Realm University, majoring in Theological Geometry. I got called to the office to correct it.
Learn something new every day.
Dharma Realm University is a real place. I just googled it. My oh my.
Apologies in advance to anyone who attended this school, but I requested an application from what was then Slippery Rock State teachers college because I thought the name was funny. My parents were not amused.
You can now get phone apps that are postfix RPN calculators.
My H had an old HP calculator with GOLD contacts. I believe it still works.
never heard of reverse Polish notation. I was used to dumb Pollack jokes back when.
The undergrad chemistry lab had one Wang plugged into the wall socket calculator when I was an undergrad. We usually used slide rules (remember those- all freshmen inn our HS had to learn how to use them in science class- integrated chem/phys/bio). We had one Pchem lab that we needed an accurate data point- I think it was 9 or 11 digits that we had to do a punch card for so the result could be plugged into a computer program. Required going to the Computer Science building where we were given a single card to punch out the number. I don’t recall how many tries and trips to the front desk it took me to get a card properly punched. I never really learned how to type- I dropped out of a personal typing class I took one summer while in HS because it was so boring. Also had no intention of ever being a secretary, couldn’t be called upon for that role in any organization where the females were expected to be able to take on that role either. Now I suspect kindergarteners can type better/faster than I can.
Postfix notation became known as “reverse Polish notation” because those who spoke English but not Polish had trouble with the (Polish) inventor’s name. I.e. “[reverse] Łukasiewicz notation” might have been hard for English speakers.
http://www.calculator.org/rpn.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Polish_notation
http://www.hpmuseum.org/rpn.htm
My college played Slippery Rock in a pre-season game . We thought the name was a joke as well.