<p>
Why bother with trig tables when you can use a slide rule?</p>
<p>Actually, many engineers still rely on lookup tables in one situation: solving engineering economics problems on the EIT exams. NCEES-approved calculators typically lack financial functions (although some can be programmed to include them), so EIT candidates still learn to solve such problems the 19th-Century way. Several pages of financial function lookup tables are printed in the EIT Reference Handbook.</p>