Modern Marvel

In 1969 our son Dov went off to college with his grandfather's slide rule.  That was an exquisite instrument, as it happens.   But four years later we resolved to replace it with a spectacular  graduation present, one of the new hand-held calculators.  It wasn't this vintage one, I know.  This one looks as if it may have eight digits, and I know ours had only six.  And -- it's hard to tell -- this one might have a decimal point.  Dov's did not; he had to estimate that on his own.  This one, though, lacks the most important function we wanted.  Yes, we could have found a less expensive one, but we paid extra for an instrument that CALCULATED SQUARE ROOTS!!  It cost $125, and those were good dollars, the equivalent of about $400 today.

Last year I saw a hand-held calculator in the Dollar Store for -- yes, $1.   And yes, it did square roots.
Didn't bother to buy it.