Thanks, Nils. Thanks, Fred. No, it isn’t nuclear powered and it doesn’t need a battery. I’m glad that my readers are so intelligent. Two weeks ago Bob S asked me if Enos ever got out of the cannibal stew pot. Yes he did, Bob. It happened in July of 2016:
I have a Picket metal slide rule I used from junior year of high school till end of freshman year of college. I was pretty good at it because I learned to solve problems from the inside out. Beginning of second year at dear old Texas A&M (Sept 1973) I found every spare nickel, dime and quarter and bought a HP 45. I never looked back. For those who used slide rules the RPN was easy to learn and I could solve complex problems quicker than those using TI 51s. Reason was with an algebraic calculator you tried to solve problems left to right instead of inside out. Mindset issue.
I remember one electrical engineering prof saying if the HP 45 has a square root 3 key it would be perfect.
Another thing of interest is that a slide rule is about a .5 to 1 percent accurate device with precision determined by skill of operator. This is due to normally only having three digits to work with and as you slid the thing left to right and back doing calculations the precision of the operator became more of an issue.
Also complex math using imaginary numbers was simple on the HP 45 and you could switch back and forth between polar and Cartesian with a push of a single button.
I still have my HP45. Bought it in late 1973 after graduating from college. Really regret not having that jewel during the previous 4 years (I too am a EE).
Yeah, you’re right. Once you start using RPN, the algebraic method seems “backward”. RPN more like a real computer–load a number into a register, enter the second number, enter an operand, read answer. Easy peasy.
I just checked- it still powers on with the power supply (battery pack is obviously kaput -needs rebuild). Switches a little wonky, but still appears to calculate fine.
Great tool–too late!! Of course, what we really could have used was a calculator that would solve Maxwell’s equations for us. That’s what the IBM 360 was for, but it didn’t fit on our belt.
My fave stew pot gag was the ingrown toenail, “Hm. Pot Roast juice taste a little stinky.”
I had (still have) a Pickett, in a leather case, I could attach to my belt.
I always wonder how you cartoonists get inspiration. Jack D or what?
Only very occasionally did a gag pop into my head. It was the worst part of the job. In the morning I had to think of something funny. There was nothing serendipitous about it. I had characters and a situation or a subject. I just concentrated and thought. It usually took me about two hours to come up with ideas for the three dailies that I would draw that day.