Think you're good at following directions? Give these step-by-step instructions a shot

[geezer77]

I used to collect old mechanical calculators and business machines just for fun. Some time back I came across this old 1930's Monroe business calculator, which believe it or not still worked fine. I no longer have it, but this typed sheet of instructions on how to find the square root of a number using was with it. I'm pretty old myself and have seen a lot of hand-typed instruction manuals for old machines, but this one pretty much took the cake for outright jaw-dropping complexity. Of course I couldn't resist trying it. The procedure actually worked, assuming you have massive patience and an hour or so to devote to finding the square root of a number. Really makes me appreciate the early HP and Texas Instruments handheld calculators of the 60's.