Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Back in the 1970s, we wished for useful things built into the bodies of our calculators. Today, some of us old persons wish for the same in the bodies of our smartphones.

I was looking at the back of my smartphone. I remember the back of my big Texas Instruments calculator from the late 1970s (yes, I am that old). I am wishing for the same things that I wished for with that TI calculator.

One thing the smartphone has that the calculator didn’t are straight edges. I can place the smartphone on paper and draw a straight line. That is wonderful. Sure, some smart fashion designed put curves on the corners so that I can’t draw right angles, but that’s what you get when they put a fashion designer to work on a technical device.

Here is what the smartphone, and that old calculator, needs:
One one long straight edge, two scales—one inch and one centimeter.
On the other long straight edge, one scale—logarithmic.

These are the same wishes as we had almost four decades ago. We won’t get our wishes now either, but that is the nature of wishing.