411A -
Yes, I remember those too - RTOTs we called them. They were fine as far as they went, but, as I'm sure you are aware, the Laptop does so much more and much more quickly such as App/Clb gradients when you suddenly need them, contaminated R/w perf which, I recall, was fun with RTOTs. And all this with accuracy that means your assumed temp is always as high as possible for engine life.
I would not try to teach you perf - I suspect we are of similar ages and have both been through the dark ages of performance to where we are now. The laptop has its merits as long as it is treated as a tool to which slavish obedience is not necessarily the right answer. Eg you don't have to accept its offering of the optimum flap setting, you can tell it what to do, but to do that you need a fundamental understanding which has sometimes faded in some folks !!
On the smoking front, in the C!30 in days gone by, the FD was the only place where smoking was allowed and so there was a constant queue of grunts/squaddies/sailors/airmen waiting their turn for a FD 'visit'!! After 7hrs+ it did get a bit much.
Cheers
mcdhu