What happened between 39gii and prime?

[jlind]

(08-21-2019 06:08 AM)Marco Polo Wrote:  

(08-20-2019 11:50 PM)Gene222 Wrote:  Were those really "Casio 4-banger" calculators? I though "4-banger" calculators could only perform basic arithmetic calculations. I would have thought that new engineers would just use the calculators that they used in college.

The Fundamental's of Engineering exam only allows calculators like the Casio FX115. I hear that some lower division engineering classes only allow calculators that are allowed by the FE exam. These cheap $15 calculators have textbook entry, solver, ability to save an equation, and a lot of other functions, but no graphic capability. I also hear that some classes now teach how to solve some engineering problems using excel to mimic the real world.

As a matter of fact they are very basic scientific calculators with trigs, logs, and some basic stats.
They are used as four bangers.
In chemical process engineering calculations done manually are quite simple and mostly arithmetic.
Sometimes we use exp/ln and power elevation, but in this case Excel is mainly used.
More complex calculation are made by using process simulation software like Hysys or Pro/II

I share these same observations in my work which involves large-scale systems engineering and operations management. If we need to do heavy lift math work, we use Mathematica, Matlab, or Minitab on desktop PCs and laptops (the latter for experiment design and statistical analyses). There are GNU alternatives to all of those. Sometimes well-crafted simulations are the best means to understand large systems with many subsystems, all with upward of a half-dozen "control knobs", and the interactions between them. Complexities today are much greater than they were 40 years ago in communications, air traffic control, logistics, manufacturing, etc. I can count the number of times I've used exp and ln functions to do a quick Poisson process analysis over the past 25 years on one hand, and have fingers left over. Likewise I can recall one occasion using the trig functions to get rough dimensions to estimate area of a large plant operating space though and around which measuring things was not feasible - and didn't have time to wait for plant layout prints. One of the important dimensions was overhead clearance and we (I and a bystander) triangulated the heights - give or take a half foot but it was good enough for what we needed to know. May have been one or two other occasions for trig, but don't remember them. Sanity checks on numbers given in briefings also very rarely need more than a 4-banger and I do some of the add/subtract in my head. Been using a 1984 TI-30-III Slimline and 1995 TI-36X Solar for stuff like this for decades. I've seen a few older dudes pull out an HP-11C or 15C for similar. The young guys use their cell phones. On a business trip I still take a bigger calculator: TI-89 Titanium, Voyage 200, or HP-50g. They supplement the laptop which can also run emulators of them. The TI Voyage 200 can be convenient with its QWERTY keyboard and larger screen. Gradually learning how to use the Nspire CX II CAS and Prime G2 (Rev D) efficiently and they'll probably replace the other ones on business travel. They're lightning fast. If I really wanted to "rough it" I could still be using the TI-58 but it's much bigger than I want to carry in my pocket. The real skill is knowing about the processes one works with, and how to do reasonable estimates and approximations. With design activities, precision and accuracy is important. Most operational decisions that choose among alternative actions don't need high precision and accuracy. Avoiding unintended consequences is more critical.

John