Dive Computers - Pros and Cons

[Omicron]

Excellent points, some of them. I said in the other thread as well, that a lot of these things seem to be "computers rot your brain, they're bad!!!". Eh...someday's...so what??? So what if the recreational diver that is never going below 80-100 feet doesn't have his tables memorized? What harm will it really do, as long as he's obeying NDL's??

One of the things I've always found interesting - and I'm kinda playing devil's advocate here - is a lot of people espouse the use of their own custom cut tables.

Well...how do you cut those tables? VPlanner? GUE's Deco Planner?? You're using a computer...no different than me, it's just that my tables are changing every second I'm down on my computer. I'm getting computer cut tables that are not as demanding on me - if I don't spend EXACTLY 5 minutes at EXACTLY 97 feet, my computer makes up for it for me, whereas w/ custom cut tables I'm SCREWED! Unless of course I'm carrying half a dozen sets of backup tables...but then again...my dive computer kinda does that for me on the fly.