40 and Over Club

[Miss Chicken]

Better known as the Old Farts Club

The topic today is

OLD TIME LEARNING

Who here used log tables or slide rules during math/s lessons? I never learnt to use a slide rule but certainly had to use log tables right though high school. I would be hard pressed to remember how to use them today.

For anyone too young to have used log tables here is photo of a page from a log table book

I remember that they were quite easy to use, I just don't really recall how to use them.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I stopped paying any attention in math in the fourth grade. So if I was ever presented with these things in early high school I don't remember them. Later I went to a Steiner school where we only learned very artistic math, math that demonstrated the spiritual meaningfulness of the cosmos. Or something like that. I paid attention to that math because it was kind of cool but it most certainly did not contain any tables as above. I'm sure my peers in the Steiner school were utterly screwed if they took any math in college.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I never overly liked maths (because it didn't seem very creative to me) but I was reasonably good at it.

Other things that are remember that are mainly gone from schools are slide projectors and reel-to-reel film projectors.

And typewriters - I never did typing at school but one of my sisters did.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

slide projectors and reel-to-reel film projectors.

The AV Club to the rescue!

And typewriters - I never did typing at school but one of my sisters did.

'
One of the only truly useful things I learned in school. I was amazed I could actually do it, having been extremely uncoordinated. I failed typing though because the second half of the course was on Insurance, we had to type out everything we learned about it with our newly learned typing skills. Insurance was SO SO SO boring.. like want-to-die boring that I paid no attention and did no assignments. But I can type real quick

 

[Miss Chicken]

I wasn't allowed to do typing because I was in one of the 'top' classes and we were told we couldn't learn typing because we were too brainy to set our sights on the typing pool or to end up as secretaries.

As a result of this I had to study French for four years. I think in the long run I would have benefited more from doing typing especially as computers eventually became so important. I am still only a hunt and pecker when it comes to typing.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Wow.....I might have seen a page like that once when a teacher threw a book at me and it opened on its journey to my head, but apart from that i have to admit no, i never saw that type of maths at school.......my teachers were not so much into teaching as they were into having us open books and copy from them and sitting quiet for the whole period.

 

[Mary Ann]

I never had to use a slide rule or log table; we had to buy the fancy new calculators with all those buttons with functions I still don't understand 25 years later. I was good at math until calculus and algebra entered the equation (hurhur), and then I was screwed. I dropped science after Grade 10 for the same reason. Looking at my secondary school-aged children's math and science homework makes my head hurt, but whenever I help them with any social sciences homework they get merits for it, so I'm not entirely hopeless.

Miss Chicken, I agree that learning to type is of great benefit. I probably still have the same killer speed of about 30 words per minute I had in high school, but being able to touch-type has saved me hundreds upon hundreds of hours over the years, especially with all the essay-based courses I've studied. Keyboarding, as my children insist on calling it, is second nature to kids growing up in a computer-dependent society, but for us older folks who first took lessons on manual typewriters the skills learned then come in very handy.

 

[Miss Chicken]

After reading how to use log tables on this page I have sort of remembered how to use log tables. It was easier than it looks when reading that page for the first time.

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

Having graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree in 1969, I was intimately familiar with both base 10 and natural logs. The slide rule was part of my daily life all through school and I could make the thing fly. I still have it but never use it. All the other ancient "technology" like the overhead projector, 8 mm film strips and GASP Mimeograph sheets are part of my past.

Miss Chicken said she was "huntin' pecker". How crude. ;-)

 

[marillion]

I just (thankfully) missed out on needing slide rules and such.. By the time I got to highschool, scientific calculators and the like were just starting to be used.

I did take typing class in middle school, with the old IBM selectrics.. I find it funny that my 8th grade daugher doesn't have to take typing at all.. I think there's an assumption that because computers are so much a part of our every day lives, that there is no need for it. I think I disagree, but that's just me...

 

[TerokNor]

Well...I think I remember those. But I am under 40. Must mean my school was very old-fashionated. I have no idea anymore how those things worked, but there is this distant memory of someone trying to explain them to my math-frustraited self.

TerokNor

P.S. We had calculators too of course, but we were not always allowed to use them.

 

[scotpens]

I stopped paying any attention in math in the fourth grade. So if I was ever presented with these things in early high school I don't remember them. Later I went to a Steiner school where we only learned very artistic math, math that demonstrated the spiritual meaningfulness of the cosmos. Or something like that.

What’s a Steiner school? Is that one of those “progressive” schools?

slide projectors and reel-to-reel film projectors.

The AV Club to the rescue!

Indeed, I was one of those high school Audio-Visual geeks. It was easy class credit and you got to see all the films that were ordered every week. My favorites were the anti-drug films like “LSD: Insight or Insanity?”

. . . All the other ancient “technology” like the overhead projector, 8 mm film strips and GASP Mimeograph sheets are part of my past.

We had 35mm filmstrips, with the accompanying soundtrack on LP discs that had an audible click or chime to cue the operator to advance to the next frame. There were 8mm home movies then, but I never heard of 8mm filmstrips. Wouldn’t the image be too grainy to project big enough for a classroom?

. . . I did take typing class in middle school, with the old IBM selectrics.. I find it funny that my 8th grade daugher doesn't have to take typing at all.. I think there's an assumption that because computers are so much a part of our every day lives, that there is no need for it. I think I disagree, but that's just me...

Actually, it’s just the opposite. With computer skills being essential these days, it’s more important than ever for kids to learn proper touch-typing in school. Unless they think they can use a full-size standard keyboard with only their thumbs, the same way they text on their iPhones.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Well...I think I remember those. But I am under 40. Must mean my school was very old-fashionated. I have no idea anymore how those things worked, but there is this distant memory of someone trying to explain them to my math-frustraited self.

TerokNor

P.S. We had calculators too of course, but we were not always allowed to use them.

Indeed, how many hung these from their belts?

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^
The HP 40 came out in 1970 IIRC at a cost of $395.00. One engineer in my department bought one. He put it on a 4 ft tall pedestal at one side of his office and would let you use it but only if he watched. You had to press the keys with the clean eraser end of a pencil, no fingers allowed. In 10 years or so, the same functions were available for $30.00 and today, you can get it for $10.00 or less. Remember, $395 in 1970 was the equivalent of over $2000 today.

 

[T'Bonz]

I preferred the languages instead of typing. But Mum had a typewriter at home and a book on how to learn typing. So I taught myself.

The only snag was that when it came to the numbers row, I shrugged and thought "That's not important" and stopped there. As a result, it took *years* until I could type numbers quickly. But I've a very fast typist now, even more so since the computers came out.

We were taught slide rules, but only had to learn to use them for the inevitable test, then we forgot about 'em. It wasn't hard to learn, I remember. But calculators (at $75-$100 each, now they sell for $5) had just come out, and the teacher knew that slide rules would become obsolete. This was in the early to mid 1970s.

I'm sure we did log tables, but it's not an important memory I guess, so I can't tell you what happened there.

I wasn't allowed to do typing because I was in one of the 'top' classes and we were told we couldn't learn typing because we were too brainy to set our sights on the typing pool or to end up as secretaries.

As a result of this I had to study French for four years. I think in the long run I would have benefited more from doing typing especially as computers eventually became so important. I am still only a hunt and pecker when it comes to typing.

 

[TrekkieMonster]

LOVE this topic! Yup, I'm over 40 and remember using the Log tables in the back of the math book. I also had to learn to use a slide-rule, though I couldn't for the life of me figure out what to do with one today.

For better or worse, I had a series of math teachers - from Algebra on up - who would not let us use calculators of any sort. We had to know how to do everything long-hand. We cursed them at the time, but it came in very handy later.

My senior year in High School, we were finally allowed to use our handy TI-30s ... but for logrithms only (boy, did that pic bring back memories.)

To make a long story even longer, Freshman year in college, everyone had their hand dandy HP 41C's. We were permitted to program formulas into it for my mechanical engineering exam, which I diligently did. Unfortunatley, there were a number of us who had our chemistry final right before the ME final. The proctors methodically whiped the memories of everyone's calculators before we entered the exam room because we were not permitted to have any pre-programmed formulas for that exam.

Needless to say, there were a whole lot of unhappy campers heading to our ME final. And I thanked my lucky stars that I'd been "forced" to do so much math the old fashioned way for so many years, and it saw me through that damn ME final fairly well.

I used to love math. These days ..., it tasks me ....

As for typing, I got into a typing class in 8th grade, sort of by accident, and it was not the kind of class "real boys" took. But, I stuck with it (not being a "real boy" and all.) It was back in the days when we learned on manual typwriters with blank keys, so we had to learn to touch type. My teacher was incredibly prescient: in 1975, she was telling us that typing was going to be one of the most valuable classes we ever had, because - in her words - "these new computers are going to become more and more important in our lives." And she was right. I stuck with typing classes for 4 years, could type 85 wpm, and that single skill landed me more jobs and allowed me to make more money than any other single thing I'd done until ..., well, probably until I'd been practicing law for a few years.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Of course, when I was at school the teacher used to use a blackboard - no whiteboards back then, and certainly no StarBoards (interactive whiteboards).

I loved being the dustboard monitor. Had to wipe the board clean and then take the dusters out and clean them by whacking them with a ruler.

I also liked being milk monitor (back then each day a child got a free small bottle of milk - at least in Tasmanian state schools they did). I liked being flower monitor because my mother had a beautiful flower garden so it was easy for me to bring flowers for the teacher's desk. I didn't like being the bin monitor because I didn't like having to empty the rubbish. I know there were some other jobs but I can't remember what they were.

 

[M'Sharak]

I remember using log tables and slide rules both, yep.

Well...I think I remember those. But I am under 40. Must mean my school was very old-fashionated. I have no idea anymore how those things worked, but there is this distant memory of someone trying to explain them to my math-frustraited self.

TerokNor

P.S. We had calculators too of course, but we were not always allowed to use them.

Indeed, how many hung these from their belts?

http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h414/GovKodos/Star Trek Images/TI-30_LEDcopy.jpg

Not that model, but the scientific calculators were just coming in while I was still in high school. I think this one and this were the current models at the time, and a couple of years later I had one of these. (We weren't allowed to use them for tests, though.)

 

[scotpens]

Of course, when I was at school the teacher used to use a blackboard - no whiteboards back then, and certainly no StarBoards (interactive whiteboards).

What is an "interactive whiteboard"? For some reason it me think of Yakov Smirnoff. "In Soviet Russia, chalkboard writes on you!"

 

[Miss Chicken]

Interactive whiteboard

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U05WeXPGlk&feature=related[/yt]