The Nerd Pride Thread....

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RPN - The only way to calc.

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My dad's work gave him an HP-35 when it first came out, came in a fancy leather-covered "jewelry box" along with the pocket pouch. First calculator I ever used... got an HP-21 a few years later for graduation. My buddies and I had a lot of heated arguments about whether the HP-21 or TI SR-50 was better... but us RPN guys know the answer to that!
 
I used to keep a slide rule in the glovebox of the Rx-2 to use to figure gas milage for my logbook. I still do the logbooks for all the cars (except our Soul EV) but use a calculator on my watch now to do the division for the gas milage entry.
A calculator watch is better nerd cred than a slide rule.

Man, I wish I had still had my 15C. I loved that thing.
I graduated from my 15C to a 42S. My 42S was stolen from my car is '95. By the time I tried to replace it, it was discontinued and used ones cost two to three times what new ones had.

Now I have Free42 installed on my PC, my work laptop, my tablet, my phone, and my work phone. But my phone and the work laptop were recently upgraded to Plus42.

But my favorite calculator is one that was never physically realized, and only existed as a PalmOS app. It was called MathUPro. It was very HP-like with a bunch of advantages. I bless its creator for creating it, and curse him for refusing to port it to Android.

My dad's work gave him an HP-35 when it first came out, came in a fancy leather-covered "jewelry box" along with the pocket pouch. First calculator I ever used.
My dad's employer split the $400 price of one of those with him.
My buddies and I had a lot of heated arguments about whether the HP-21 or TI SR-50 was better... but us RPN guys know the answer to that!
I've known a few HP users who had to get used to TIs and become proficient, and they all went back to HP when they had the chance. I've known a few TI users who had to get used to HPs and become proficient, and only a minority went back.

I also once saw a comparative review of the current HP and TI calculators of the day that ended with throwing both of them had against a wall. The TI flew to pieces and the HP still worked just fine.

Are there any points in fixing a hotel room telephone with a pocket knife and a bottle of shampoo?
Oh, heck yeah, whether you broke it yourself or not. Just two weeks ago I fixed* a hotel room's sagging towel shelf just because it bothered me.

* OK, I greatly improved it. To restore it to nearly original condition would have taken more tools than I had available: two pair pf pliers and/or a hammer.
 
When I created and solved a system of equations to find the remaining dimensions of AS-203's nose to supplement the dimensions I was able to find.

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When I checked over the work of a guy on the internet (even though he didn’t ask) who created and solved a system of equations to find the remaining dimensions of AS-203's nose to supplement the dimensions he was able to find.

Just the setup and algebra, though. Not the calculations. That’s too “applied math” for me.
 
I think the fact that you're on TRF at all pretty much qualifies you...
In addition to that, I made a Beaker rocket and I'm currently working on a SpongeBob rocket. For the latter, this morning I was considering for the launch to wear the SpongeBob costume I scratch made years ago for a company Halloween contest...

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...and I like to collect rocks! 🤓

Edit:. ...also spent decades working with Unix, on my PSAT I scored 99th percentile in English and 98th percentile in Math in NYC (then puberty hit and I got stoopid 😜)...list goes on...
 
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Dangnabbit! I love you guys! Not a nerd myself, but the slipsticks, robotic arms, manual transmissions, ti's and hp's, pocket knife repairs, et al, are truly inspirational. But I have no clue what ya'll are talking about. I'll be in the corner, doing my best impersonation of the RCA dog. Carry on!
 
PSA for my nerd friends:
Do NOT use the phrase 'self recursive sub routines' in any conversations. I don't know what it means or why it pisses everybody off, but you may not want to do that. Posting for a friend.
 
I've rebuilt lots of engines, a few manual transmissions, and I've split a few tractors to replace clutches and gearbox parts. (My father owned a garage for over 60 years.) I'm not really sure this provides any geek cred. In high school I did slide rule competition, I still have several of them and I know how to use them. I used slide rules in college too then we got calculators. I was always an RPN fan! I still have an HP35 from about 1973 or so and quite a few others since then. There is some geek stuff there. I've got the rapidograph pens and mechanical pencils. These days I use HB lead in my 0.7 and 0.9mm pencils. I do some computer programming and taught myself C, Pascal, and visual basic, and how to operate Unix and Novell systems. I've also built a lot of computers. I've worked as mentor with 3 different BEST high school robotics teams. That's high geekdom there. I've been building and launching model rockets on and off for over 50 years. That might provide more geek cred than anything.

When I created and solved a system of equations to find the remaining dimensions of AS-203's nose to supplement the dimensions I was able to find.
I still have autocad on my work computer so I tend to use it frequently to work out rocket designs and complicated geometry.

My dad's work gave him an HP-35 when it first came out, came in a fancy leather-covered "jewelry box" along with the pocket pouch. First calculator I ever used... got an HP-21 a few years later for graduation. My buddies and I had a lot of heated arguments about whether the HP-21 or TI SR-50 was better... but us RPN guys know the answer to that!
I still have an HP-35. Mine is one of the original models that doesn't say HP-35 on it, because they didn't know they would make any models past that. Then a few years later when they came out with the HP-45 they started putting a model number on the HP-35.


to 'one-up' some of you:

Twirling your pencil as you drafted
having a 'plug in' pencil eraser, and using the shield properly..

I have my drafting pens somewhere.. I was pretty good a cleaning them, so much so, that I was 'the' man to look after them (and this was on an HP multi-pen plotter.. 'D' size!)
I did/still do some of that. I had the electric eraser but hardly work with drawings on paper these days so don't use one anymore. Some years ago we had a new marketing person in our office sitting near my desk. I was working on a drawing and pulled the thing out from under my desk to do a quick erase then put it back. She saw part of what I did, the second time I used the eraser she got up and came over to ask me about it. She had never seen one before and she thought it was the ultimate in being lazy.

The good thing about them is you have to know which ballpark you are in before you do the calc. The bad thing is you need to know which ballpark you are in before you do the calc....
Are you talking about decimal points? When I used slide rules in high school we learned the place number system that gives you the decimal points automatically. To multiply 2 numbers you count the number of digits to the left of the decimal for both numbers and add those together, then if the slide is sticking out to the right you subtract 1 from that total, this gives you the number of digits to the left of the decimal for the answer. For division you subtract one place number from the other, etc.
 
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Nipper is his name.
And, ten nerd points for tsmith1315. 20 more if you can give the name's origin without opening the spoiler.
It comes from neper (Np), which is similar to the decibel but based on the natural, or Naperian log instead of the base ten log. In turn, after John Napier, who invented natural logs.

PSA for my nerd friends:
Do NOT use the phrase 'self recursive sub routines' in any conversations. I don't know what it means or why it pisses everybody off, but you may not want to do that. Posting for a friend.
Don't use "self recursive..." anything unless it's in the same paragraph as "repetitive redundancy" or "aggravating annoyance".

I've been building and launching model rockets on and off for over 50 years. That might provide more geek cred than anything.
Nope.
In high school I did slide rule competition
That does.


OK, what else have I got?

I never had a TRS-80, but two of my friends did. For both if them I performed the cut-and-jump mod to add the eighth 1K×1 RAM chip that enables displaying lower case letters. For one guy I also jumped in some unused gates in chips on the circuit board to arrange the characters in the right block of the TRS-80's pseudo-ASCII. The other guy decided to do that in software, since he was already booting into TRS-DOS anyway.

I habitually use Alt codes (°, ×, etc.) while typing, including right here on TRF. I use them often enough that I made a cheat sheet with the ones I'm most likely to look for. (Here, I finally posted to this thread with a picture.)
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20 more if you can give the name's origin without opening the spoiler.

I know the painting is "His Master's Voice". I'll have to bow out at knowing exactly why he was called Nipper without guessing.
But, in reverence, I do have a tiny Nipper on a shelf overlooking a turntable.

I habitually use Alt codes (°, ×, etc.) while typing, including right here on TRF. I use them often enough that I made a cheat sheet with the ones I'm most likely to look for.

Copied, thanks!

BTW, lifetime membership award to Joe for doodling with TRS-80 innards. The best I can do there is playing "estimation bowling" on the one in the high school physics lab.

@MALBAR 70, that wagon is quintessential nerd motility.
 
to 'one-up' some of you:

Twirling your pencil as you drafted
having a 'plug in' pencil eraser, and using the shield properly..

I have my drafting pens somewhere.. I was pretty good a cleaning them, so much so, that I was 'the' man to look after them (and this was on an HP multi-pen plotter.. 'D' size!)
Aaahh, mate! Pen plotters. HP. 'D' size. Brought back good memories, for, um, my wife, yeah, that's it, for my wife! I sold it for her. Some nerd bought it. Felt sorry for HIS wife. You wouldn't believe how much room that takes up in a human scale room. Or maybe you would...
 
"Chipper" is the correct answer.

Here's one more "name" trivia; what's the Michelin Man's name (the one that looks like he's made up of inner tubes or tires).
 
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My nerd cred:

I...
1) fly rockets.
2) am an Extra Class Amateur Radio Operator
3) use Linux for my daily driver
4) have programmed computers using a language named after a childhood disease (points to the first person to name that language)
5) once taught myself COBOL just for fun (and wrote a ham radio logging program with it)
6) was the Communications Officer for the local chapter of a Star Trek fan club
7) was on the board of directors for a local gaming convention back in the 80s
8) first played Dungeon and Dragons in 1977 and owned the "white box" edition
9) have brewed my own beer and made my own cheese

That's just what I can think of while waiting for the bacon to cook. Time to go check it. 73
 
He had a son, Chipper, who appeared in some advertising. Don't know Nipper's other name though. 🤔
I bow to your nerdelicioisness. I forgot all about Chipper, and didn't even remember when Sooner Boomer asked, until you gave the name.

OOh, ooh... Bibendum. Something to do with alcohol and Michelin restaurants.
Now you're just showing off. 😉

That would be the puffy cheeks one, right?
Yup, it would.
 
I loaned my 28C to a good friend and it was stolen from his car. He insisted he'd by me another one until he priced them.




Are there any points in fixing a hotel room telephone with a pocket knife and a bottle of shampoo? Didn't want to get a bill for that...
Or the student pilot (guess who?) Who was told specifically not to use a grass RW, but did it anyway. He just wiped down the wheels, pants, and struts prior to tying down. Didn't want to pay for that one either.
 
And now for something completely different...

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I hope to paint my whole collection within my lifetime.
@Antares JS wins another thread. 👍 (very nice work)
That would be the puffy cheeks one, right?
Dang, that sent me to the list of programming languages on Wikipedia to look it up. I hadn't heard of that one. Then again, looking at the massive size of that list, there are a whole lot that I haven't heard of.
 
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