Do computers solve the equations yet?

[watchamadoodle]

That book doesn't look like it was meant as a pedagogical intro for learning diff equations, and more like a reference...

Yep, but I'm pretty sure that was the smelly old book I remember. Everybody would say "look it up in the CRC". It was a big reference book of solutions to weird differential equation. We had to fiddle with the equations by dropping insignificant terms and transforming various ways until it matched something in that smelly book. Sometimes it would take all day and many pieces of paper and erasers to solve one problem. I remember in physics class the professor taught QM with "bra-kets" which seemed to require no math at all, but it was completely meaningless to me. I read today on wikipedia that the "bra-kets" are designed to conceal some lower-level math. I just wasn't able to keep up unfortunately.

That's why I think computers with 3-D interactive graphs would be helpful for modern-day students.