value of GRAD angle mode, thought experiment

[rprosperi]

In college in the late 70s, I had an ME Professor that described grads as "only used by surveyors that can't think" and that such folks should be avoided.

I've never met anyone that used them for anything other than to explore them for curiosity sake and/or to see if they are buggy.

I'd never pay a cent more for such a model (other than for collecting purposes, excluded here).

What I wonder is what HP (and TI, etc) were thinking when deciding to include it. No doubt so form of "well, there are some people using it, maybe we can attract them to buy" but it seems to not have been well justified. I'd guess the extra work/costs to research, develop, test and document use of Grads was never offset by sales of units for that feature.

I suppose there are obscure bugs hidden within the use of grads, but we'll never know since no one cares....