sandbox

Yes, I can see where you're coming from and how it might be applicable to something like calculating the loading across an aircraft wing. But I'm thinking more of my experience of circuit analysis or say, analogue filter bank design where endless calculations needed to be done to specify component values to meet design specs; noise, stability and tedious stuff like sensitivity to component value tolerances. Toys and fun? All of it still is - never grew up.

This thread of college nostalgia I can certainly relate to although, on the other side of the pond, there was no way, as a student, I could afford a fancy imported HP. But it wasn't the maths guys or even the computer nerds who were desperate for calculators, it was the engineers. Sure, those studying computer architecture and compilers would find behind the scenes conversion from infix to RPN was mundane to remove the problems of associativity and precedence. An abstraction now thankfully hidden by a modern calculator. Whereas, the poor engineers slogging through pages of calculations, could actually get an answer this side of Sunday. RPN was fun to use but I don't miss it any more than punching Hollerith cards, coding in assembler or wire wrapping TTL.

Ah, talking about good looks, I built this little RPN beauty from a kit just in time to take it up to Uni. Where, it was promptly disallowed from exams and I used my trusty slide rule for two more years. Five years later, during post grad, I finally learnt about the elegance of RPN processing bracket free arithmetic as a stream of tokens and operands with a stack. Which is why, no doubt some old guy like me, mentioned Forth - that lean and mean stack based language. We've come a long way. Fifty years ago I had to think like a computer to design. Now, with the likes of AI/Chat GPT they 'think' like us.