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by anonymousiam 388 days ago
Great stories. I had a similar experience with one of my college math professors (I was 16). I showed her that my calculator (with the Math module) could transform a 9th order matrix in a few seconds. She shrugged, because she knew that I didn't need the calculator to ace her tests.

The dialer was one of only two mods that I had made to my 41. I brought out the piezoelectric wires via a two-pin female .1" "berg" connector that I had added to the lower right side of the case. (I wish I had a photo.) The other mod used similar hardware; I put a magnetic reed switch inside, which changed a capacitor value for the system clock when a small magnet was attached (via Velcro) to the side of the calculator. The result was that my 41 would run its programs twice as fast. I had to remove the magnet to use my auto-dialer, because otherwise the timing was wrong. In my area, GTE didn't switch to ESS for another 10 years. Oh the fun!