[ale] Engineering Archaeology

[Steve Litt]

On Sat, 24 Jan 2026 10:20:14 -0800
Alex Carver via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:

> Similar argument as has been stated here "You already
> need to know the math if you want to use the slide rule. It's for
> accuracy not for cheating."

I'll say one thing in defense of the argument you reference. Adding
with carry, subtraction with borrowing, compound multiplication and
multidigit division, plus repeatedly making my own multiplication
charts gave me a complete understanding of base 10 and powers. So
learning base 16, base 12 and base 2 was easy as pie. So the first time
I programmed a 6800 in hexidecimal I knew exactly what was going on. So
decades later, when it became necessary to increase the efficiency of
my prime number generator, I had no problem with bitwise operations.

https://troubleshooters.com/codecorn/primenumbers/primenumbers.htm

SteveT

Steve Litt 
Featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques