New functions, new ways to do things

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

I have long been a fan of technology. Back in high school, when calculators first had more than 4 functions, before the day of the computer, in the time of typewriters, I was on the bleeding edge. And I have been ever since.
I have to admit that blogging did not strike me as necessary at first, since I was writing for a living, it did not seem relaxing to me when it first started, something I did not HAVE to do.
Maybe I am just getting tired of early adoption.
I loved that first Texas Instruments calculator. The little red LED lights and the positive click of the rectangular keys when you pressed them made me happy. I remember the silly math games to make words with the display, and how I would whip it out and beat my slide-rule-toting friends to answers. How they must have despised me.
According to a couple of websites detailing the history of calculators, I must have been in my Junior year when I got mine, shoplifted from a Radio Shack store I am quite embarassed to say. Here are the particulars of it:
SR-50
FUNCTIONS: Scientific:
x^2, sqrt(x), 1/x, %, y^x, x root y, factorial, trig,
hyperbolic trig functions, e^x, LNx, Log, Degrees to
Radian conversion and vice versa, degree/radians switch,
One memory register with store, recall, and sum.
MEMORIES: 1
DISPLAY: 14 LEDs
KEYBOARD: 40 buttons
SWITCHES: Top Right On/Off
Top Left Radians/Degrees
BATTERIES: 3-AA NiCads
PHYSICAL: 5.8" x 3.2" x 1.3"
WEIGHT:
PRODUCTION: Announced on January 15, 1972
COST: $169.95
INFO: o The first SR-50 was first marketed by direct mail.
o Like the SR-11, this machine has brightly colored blue,
orange, and gray keys, along with white for digit entry.
o Also has a silver area that comes down below the first
row of keys.
o It also marks the start of Texas Instruments assault on
the HP slide rule calculators.

Looking back on it, how could the teachers NOT know I had stolen the thing, where in hell would I have gotten $169 to pay for it? According to another website, that is about the same as $700 today. I would certainly be suspicious of one of my kids (especially MY kids, it appears) if they suddenly had a $700 toy.
Futhermore, I am sure all my friends knew it too. Not that they were that great of friends, as time would show, but that was my circle of acquaintances at the time.