Modern Electronics (was Re: List charter mods & headcount... ;

From: auryn_at_gci-net.com <(auryn_at_gci-net.com)>
Date: Wed Jun 23 17:23:30 2004

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 15:06:59 -0700 (PDT)
 Fred Cisin <cisin_at_xenosoft.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 23 Jun 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:
> > I know I'm perhaps a little younger than the average
> age of people on
> > this list, but I feel I was one of the last generation
> who was lucky
> > enough to do an old-style degree course. We had access
> to real (and
> > diverse) systems rather than things being emulated, and
> we were given a
> > lot of grounding theory in the way things actually
> worked, and more
> > importantly we weren't given an easy ride - no such
> thing as an open
> > book exam then, no whizzy graphical tools to do half
> the work for us
> > etc.
>
> In my day, we didn't have the option of using a
> calculator.
> Did that help or hurt? Are the aspects that it helped or
> hurt
> relevant to what is being tested?
>
> In my day, we were to supply our own scratch paper for
> standardized tests,
> including graph paper. We were not allowed to bring in
> sliderules,
> but there was no rule against making one during the test!
>
> > I'm amazed at how often the fundamentals that we were
> taught have helped
> > me work some problem out - and I've lost track of how
> many of the later
> > generations of graduates I've had to deal with who just
> can't think
> > properly because all they've been taught is how to push
> a mouse around a
> > screen.
>
> How many current students can find a square root without
> a sqrt or x^y key on a calculator?

How many can do a *cube* root without a calculator
(or log/alog tables)?

I suspect the "bar" is far lower than suggested here.
I'd wager "long division" sets many scratching their
heads...

> How many even know the square root of 2 and 3?

2.236+ ;-)

--don
Received on Wed Jun 23 2004 - 17:23:30 BST