Re: Sliderules, Logs, and Prodigies

[Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>]

The Deviant wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Nov 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
> > At 2:44 PM -0800 11/5/96, Sean Roach wrote:
> > >If I remember my history right, the order that math was done often depended
> > >on the model of calculator it was done on.  I remember being warned as late
> > >as 1991 how some calculators may still still add before they multiply, and
> > >to use those parenthesis for good measure, just to be safe.

> > Well, it ain't _history_ only--it's also current. Some of us use RPN
> > (Reverse Polish Notation) calculators exclusively. (Even my screen
> > calculator I use on my Mac is an RPN one.)

> Yes, many calculators still have the add/multiply error also.  Most of the
> newer generation (the one which I wish I didn't have to be a part of)
> doesn't know what RPN is, much less how to use it.

> A friend of mine found his father's RPN HP (don't know which model) from
> college a week or two ago, and you'd never beleive how long it took me to
> convince him that "RPN" really does stand for "Reverse Polish Notation".
> As for slide rules, I think I'm the only person at my school who knows
> what a slide rule _is_, much less how to use one ;)

According to HP, the "Polish" part of the term comes from a Polish mathematician whose
name (I can't spell it, and I don't have the .DOC) is pronounced phonetically:
WOOCASHEVITZ.  The "reverse" part apparently means the inventor specified the 
operation before the parameters, instead of how HP implemented it.