Continuing on with our ancient computer theme, we went digging through the Computer Museum again and found another machine that we can use to calculate the comparison of our hit rate to the hit rate of The Google.
That is my Heathkit, all-electronic, desktop calculator.
And…. I want to tell you the backstory behind this calculator….
Yes, DG, you DO have to sit through another telling of this story, so quit complaining!
Just to be clear, this calculator is not a $5 calculator like the one that I mentioned in my previous post. Nope. Here is a calculator like that.
Actually, that isn’t a $5 calculator either. That is, in fact a 25¢ calculator that I picked up at a rummage sale. It still works, and I use it most of the time. The battery is long since dead, but it works OK on solar power. So I just keep using it because it works……
But I digress.
Way back in 1971, when I was in the A.F. I was deployed TDY to England for a few months……
DG: Groan
Me: Hush.
While I was over there, I saw an advertisement in a magazine for a new Heathkit all-electronic calculator. It was one of the very first “affordable” all- electronic calculators made at that time. Brand new, and high tech. It was only $149.00….. which today would cost…….. $953.85 …. Hmmm.
So, having MMTB, as soon as I got back Stateside I ordered one. By the time the box arrived at my doorstep, it was already obsolete and they weren’t making it anymore. (True story; the technology took off like a rocket and they had a better one already).
But I assembled the kit anyway, and it worked. Yay.
Now here we are, 49 years later, and I still have the calculator. So I yanked the cover off of it, blew out the dust bunnies, and toggled the power switch…… and it lit up!
Wow. I put the cover back on, and here it is, all lit up like Broadway
Pretty cool.
So I made a short video of how we would solve the hit rate calculation back in 1971.
Well…. this is how we would have solved the hit rate calculation if there had been a hit rate. A hit back then was something you did to a baseball.
So…… DG, waddaya think?
Hello?
Waddaya think, DG?
DG?
DG: Zzzzzzzzzzzzz