For more than 100 years slide rules were used to perform calculations, allowing for quick multiplication, division and other mathematical operators. This was often significantly faster and less error prone than doing so by hand.
It is often said that if dinosaurs had a space program, they wouldn’t have gone extinct. It is therefore not a huge jump to say that if dinosaurs had slide rules then they wouldn’t have gone extinct.
I tell you the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls.
Robert A. Heinlein