Isaac Asimov - Science and science fiction writer

[Brother Mythos]

59. I don't remember what HP model(s) engineering students like me were using in '74 ...

but I assure you, the model(s) available then could not. The HP users in my Heat Transfer class had to use and plug in tabular data to solve the few problems we were given that required inverse hyperbolic functions to solve.

Even quite a few years later, my fellow engineers with their HPs could not do inverse hyperbolic functions. I do admit, however, that they may have still been using older model calculators.

Those old pocket calculators really were quite durable. I remember once seeing something bouncing down the highway behind my car after I had left home, and realized it was the calculator I had placed on top of the roof while I cleaned the windshield. To my delight, however, other than a little scratch on one of the corners, the calculator was undamaged. I'm not entirely sure, but I think I got well over ten (10) years use out of mine before the battery died and I bought something new.