Help! - maths

[Fuzzie]

whoops

[ian]

so to be really tricky, the question should have been...

How many days in February 1800 PLUS February 1716, now add -21, and take the square root.

The answer is still 6.

nope

1800 wasn't a leap year. neither was 1900, nor will 2100 be a leap year.

Century years need to be divisible by 400 before they are leap years. That is the essential innovation of the Gregorian Calendar.

[Oldgreybeard]

I think I wrote my own first usable RP calculator program in about 1981 on a Prime computer.

Crickey a Prime computer - now that brings back memories. I worked for McDonnell Douglas in the 1980s developing and installing health computing systems at a number of Australian and NZ hospitals. All our software was written Basic though and all dates and other Americanisms had to be converted manually to the Australian format and spelling.

However did get to spend 40 weeks in St Louis at someone's expense.

And yes the answer is 6

Bob

[Chesand]

You are correct that 1800 was not a leap year but 1716 is divisible by 4

[rrich]

Never, I've always played with real computers.
My first introduction to reverse polish was in 1971 learning Fortran from McCraken's manual.
I think I wrote my own first usable RP calculator program in about 1981 on a Prime computer.

OMG!
McCracken! About 1969 and I used the Fortran II version. As we upgraded to Fortran IV, McCracken just didn't seem to do it with IV.

And, the Prime. The nicest thing that I could say about the Prime was that it sucked Charles River water.

The Prime systems were desirable for network control systems because they supported X.25 directly into the CPU. We used them to run Telenet. (US VAN or Value Added Network which was based on X.25. We later evolved Telenet, a.k.a. Sprintnet, into what is now the Internet in the US. ) We sold a lot of international X.25 networks but I don't remember if we sold a network to Telstra.

Thank you for the comment about RPN and Fortran. When thinking about it after all these years, RPN is rather obvious now.

[Fuzzie]

I didn't mean to hijack the thread.
... so I'll refrain from trying to remember why I liked working for PR1ME.

[AlexS]

I'm another one who used McCracken, back about 1970 IIRC.
An organisation I worked for in the late 70s looked at buying a Prime. They were very big on hospitality - had a few nice lunches on them. Also remember in their Melbourne office, they had receptionists who were twin sisters who dressed the same - most attractive they were, too.

[ian]

An organisation I worked for in the late 70s looked at buying a Prime. They were very big on hospitality - had a few nice lunches on them. Also remember in their Melbourne office, they had receptionists who were twin sisters who dressed the same - most attractive they were, too.

now that, is worthy of further comment

[Big Shed]

now that, is worthy of further comment

It is also wildly off-topic.

[AlexS]

It is also wildly off-topic.

Yeah, but...

[ian]

Yeah, but...

the last 20 posts are OT.

but does it really matter?

[Fuzzie]

Unfortunately before my time, must have been during the Lionel Singer period. But entertainment and the reception desk were still memorable during later years . PR1ME always rated highly on equality and acceptance of eccentricities as well. But that's getting way off topic. If only Clinton's original challenge had to do with some sort of prime number calculation.

I wonder if Clinton ever got registered on his other forum?

[ian]

If only Clinton's original challenge had to do with some sort of prime number calculation.

how about

find the missing number (x)
SQRT (169)
SQRT (25)
SQRT (x)

[Chesand]

x = 1

[AlexS]

x = 1

Better yet, x=-1