I can remember buying my first electronic calculator. I was teaching a graduate level statistics course and I
had to have a calculator with a square root function. Back in the late 1960s, that was a pretty high-end
requirement for a calculator. I managed to purchase one at the “educational discount price” of $149.95!
Now, I look down at my desk at an ATmega2560 that is half the size for less than a quarter of the cost and
think of all the possibilities built into that piece of hardware. I am amazed by what has happened to
everything from toasters to car engines. Who-da-thunk-it 40 years ago?
