Kev, I believe it was you that said you were a machinist.
Did you work in a shop before people even had calculators? If so what was that like?
The first electronic calculator was invented in 1954 when I was a mere gleam in my fathers eye, so no I never have worked in a shop without calculators available. When I was going through my apprenticeship in the 80's we were required to "trig out" calculations on paper, I guess my instructor was nostalgic for the good old days...who knows. I still to this day do easy calculations on paper..the hard stuff I do on the calculator or AutoCad.
Conversational CNC machines have taken a lot of calculating out of the picture anyway, but its nice to stay fresh on trig, geometry, etc. for those days I run manuals.