A tweet today with the picture of a friend’s daughter prompted to me to finally write this post. The daughter at the grand old age of 20 months was running her (father’s) iPad with the dexterity of a college senior. It was quite cute and left me bemused.

I had been meaning to write about my “first” gadget. I have an iPod Touch for which I was looking for a software equivalent of the HP 12c Business calculator. I love the HP12c. I bought one when I was a sophomore in college. It was so expensive that I took out a bank loan (with my father as a co-signer) for the grand sum of $400. It was so new that I had to get permission from my professors to use it to calculate present value (rather than using the big book with tables you’d look up the values.)

To this day, the HP12c is a favorite. I have an app on my computer that is a perfect emulation and now my iPad Touch shows me the same interface for interest calculations.

I wonder if my friend’s daughter will remember her first gadget? Probably not.