I recall seeing my first electronic calculator - at an Expo. in Osaka in 1970.
It was as big as a Remington typewriter, had 4 flashing neon tubes on top, like radio valves ( remember those ! ) and only performed 4 functions, add, subtract, multiply, divide. It cost around 1,000 quid and my colleague wished he could afford one for his 'home farm' accounts - his hobby/sideline.
About 10 years later I had a better one on my wrist. ( not any longer, watches are for telling the time, like mobile phones are for making voice connections.)
Mrs. ExS was a programmer 15 years before the year 2000, she said that "they" knew that the 2 digit year sytem would cause a problem at the end of the Century, but reckoned that by then "someone" would have come up with a solution. They didn't, until the final hour ( so to speak ) but they were seriously constrained by the lack of memory, around 1 Mb. she thinks, on machines that took up half the room !
Last edited by ExSp33db1rd; 18th October 2012 at 20:26.