General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: 8/2(2+2) what do you come up with? [View all]Ms. Toad
(34,119 posts)That was 1-2 years past the era when there was a single computer serving campus (the entire basement of the library) and I hoped I didn't trip on the way to the computer center with my massive box of punch cards - because if I put one of them back in out of order I had to wait 24 hours before I got my results to be able to fix the out-of-order run. About 4 years after a 4-function calculator cost ~ $100. 3-4 years before I was teaching programming still using dumb terminals and a punch tape - with one live phone link to a remote computer. Those were the days. Not.
But construction, particularly of longer functions, was particularly challenging because of limitations on both character count and computing power.
And - you really had to understand the order of operations to write it out that way!