On Sat, 2 May 2015, MajorOz wrote:
> On Friday, May 1, 2015 at 9:39:53 PM UTC-5, Phil Brown wrote:
>> On Tuesday, April 28, 2015 at 8:12:29 AM UTC-7, lal_truckee wrote:
>>> On 4/28/15 12:38 AM, J. Clarke wrote:
>>>> However he was referring to something akin to a set of log tables.
>>>>
>>> For old times sake I still have a couple of nostalgic volumes of log
>>> tables, including the tables my mother purchased for classwork when she
>>> arrived at Berkeley in 1938.
>>
>> Slide rule, to.
>
> I have a 1958 CRC, the monster Handbook or Chemistry and Physics, about
> 1964, and my Hattori Hanzo Slipstick -- a green on yellow aluminum
> Pickett I bought in 1958.
>
I think if you have any "old" technical books, you're bund to find some
tables and/or graphs to help you work around the lack of calculators. I
did once buy a Dover book (they were known for reprinting older books) of
tables, I can't remember if I bought it new or at a used book sale. But a
lot of books I have about electronics and radio have tables and graphs, to
avoid that math.
> The beauty of the slide rule is the teaching of approximation. AFAIK,
> it isn't taught now'days.
>
I got a small one when someone I knew got his HP-35 (when they first came
out), though I don't think the calculator directly replaced this small
slide rule. So he showed me some basics, and I played with it and read up
some more, but since it was right on that cusp, it was more like a parlor
trick than something useful. A few years later I had my first scientific
calculator, and for only around $30. So what little I did learn I soon
lost due to not using the skill.
There were all those technical schools by mail advertising in the
magazines, one of them, I think NRI, had a course devoted to the slide
rule, which seemed kind of neat. It was also probably the only one of
their course I could have paid for at the time, all those neat things that
came with many of the courses tended to make them expensive. I do believe
the NRI slide rule course came with a slide rule, though.
I have no idea where that 6" (I think) slide rule went, maybe I discarded
it. But around 1978, after I had the calculator, I ended up with some
junk from a neighbor, including lots of hobby electronic magazines, and
including a 12" Charles Bruning slide rule (not that I've heard that name
anywhere). It even came with the sheath, in case I want to wear it on my
belt.
Michael