Chapter 5: Calculators: Brain Numbing Or Tedium Relieving?

On the first school day of January 1976, I was the proud user of the first hand-held calculator to enter a math classroom at my large comprehensive high school. The pride lasted the 17 seconds it took my teacher who forbid the use of the “machine” in his classroom. The calculator only performed the four-arithmetic operations (no square rooting!), was several times the size and weight of today’s calculators, and cost $120 at a time when a glass bottle of coke could be had for 15 cents. My dad had received it as a Christmas present to help him with his bookkeeping and I was only permitted to take this dazzling and valuable piece of technology to school after promising to give over my firstborn should anything happen to it.