Anyone here use slide rules back in the day?

[Rusty Blade]

I can remember when the first pocket calculators entered our orbit back in high school in '75. The cool kids...with cool fathers bought the first generation pocket calculators....for current day ridiculous prices. To add and subtract, multiply and divide. Pffffft. Ha. We uber-cool math whizz kids put them to a showdown and it was slide rules against pocket calculators. We -- the slide rules...of course...won...hands down. No contest. Those clumsy fingers trying to press silly little buttons. What a laugh we said. We figured those that invested in pocket calculators flushed their money down the drain. They will never catch on...

Little did we know...

 

[Legion]

No, but I do have one somewhere, I think. Don’t really know how to use it. The cool kids at my school had those 80’s calculator watches. You need kid sized fingers and eyesight to work those things.

My dad had one of those first generation calculators, with the red led numbers. He said it cost a fortune because he upgraded and sprung for the one with a % key.

 

[RayClem]

O still have my Post Versalog bamboo slide rule that I got in engineering school back in the day before calculators. The think I liked about slide rules was that you had to know the approximate answer before you ever picked up the slide rule. You had to know the power of ten as a minimum.

Today, people start punching numbers into a calculator and proudly proclaim the results to 12 significant digits and may have no clue as to whether the result is meaningful.

 

[Alacrity59]

Yes. I was pretty much in the last year that used them. The physics labs had HP calculators . . . a few that were on a table at the side of the class so you prepared what you wanted to calculate and then went to the table to do it then write down the result. Chemistry was all slip stick . . . and math at that level was with log tables.

Flip forward . . . college . . . Fortran on punch cards and finally what would evolve into a personal computer that stored the programs you slaved over on an 8 track tape. People taking computer science were programming assembler using flip switches. It seems we have moved on.

 

[RSC]

Yes, to some extent. Pocket calculators first started coming out when I was in college. The main contenders for scientific calculators were HP and Texas Instruments. I didn't see it happen, but I heard that there was a sales rep for each of these in the bookstore. The HP rep demonstrated how rugged the HP calculators were by flinging one against the wall. What was the TI rep going to do? He of course did the same, but the calculator did not survive.

In high school my algebra teacher had a slide rule for demonstration that was about five feet long, mounted on the wall. My mother had a circular slide rule which wrapped around so you could never run off the end.

 

[avmech]

1973 college physics among other classes. Basic calculators were just coming out at a high $ price. We were not allowed to use the calculators, slide rule only. Still have my K&E rule.....

Also, back then, for learning to fly or more specifically navigate and preflight planning, the E6-B was a circular slide rule

 

[Mempho]

O still have my Post Versalog bamboo slide rule that I got in engineering school back in the day before calculators. The think I liked about slide rules was that you had to know the approximate answer before you ever picked up the slide rule. You had to know the power of ten as a minimum.

Today, people start punching numbers into a calculator and proudly proclaim the results to 12 significant digits and may have no clue as to whether the result is meaningful.

I was an engineering student in the sixties. Everybody had a slide rule hanging from his belt. I got a Post Versalog, top of the line, from a graduating senior for $25, equivalent to over $200 today. New, it would have been five times that, more than the price of tuition. Still have it, although my wife laughs at me every time she sees it.

Learning how to use a slide rule was easy. The real skill was in analyzing the steps in each problem to minimize the movement of the slide. Each time you moved the slide, you lost a little precision. And, as Ray says, you had to mentally work out the answer, at least two places, to check that the result made sense. Still do that too, even with a digital calculator.

 

[Billski]

I had a slide rule. I really wanted that thing. I traded my clock radio to get it.

 

[FarmerTan]

My older brother had a TI in highskool. Think it cost my dad close to $500.... No, he had a job. My brother probably bought it himself.

I was the artist type. I avoided math at all costs! I had to take off my shoes for anything higher than, "10 + 1= ?

 

[Whilliam]

Don't remember the brand, but I had a rather pricey magnesium slide rule in college in the '60s. It was an unobtrusive, pocketable 6" back when everyone else was carrying those dorky 10" K&E monsters in black leather scabbards. It was a bit hard to read, but the cool factor was off the charts.

 

[Mr. Bonney]

I've taken to using a rule regularly, just to keep in practice. (I have a 6" Pickett all-metal I carry in my work truck (the yellow one at the bottom) and use it to calculate MPG every time I fill up). No batteries needed, keeps the brain sharp, no worry of theft...and impervious to EMP attack! lol About 6 years ago I started carrying a 10 inch in my forms holder, as I was sick and tired of calculators going dead or the solar cells failing. Opened my forms holder at my uncles house, and my aunt (who is a Ph.D.) exclaimed, "Look, he's got a slide rule in there!"

I keep accumulating slide rules. I have 6 now. My most recent acquisition is a 10 inch Hemmi with box, made by Post (third from the bottom) in Occupied Japan! Though my prized rule is a 20" K&E mahogany with inlay (and book), dated to around 1925 or so. (Top of pic below cardboard tube). Trying to get a unique leather holster made for it, but my leather guy is swamped. Surprisingly, the hardest accessory to find was the instruction manual. Took me over two years of looking to find it.

 

[Ad Astra]

I have the slide rule that went on the Apollo missions.

Well. The same model. (edit: it might be Mr Bonney's Pickett, above!)

The Ti30 calculator was a nerd's dream in the 70s... But Tom Swift always used a slide rule, so.

AA

 

[FarmerTan]

Don't remember the brand, but I had a rather pricey magnesium slide rule in college in the '60s. It was an unobtrusive, pocketable 6" back when everyone else was carrying those dorky 10" K&E monsters in black leather scabbards. It was a bit hard to read, but the cool factor was off the charts.

You are my new nerd Super Hero friend! I wouldn't know which end of a slip stick to look at, so ALL youse guys are my heroes.

If were up to my types to run things we'd still be painting on cave walls.

 

[FarmerTan]

I have the slide rule that went on the Apollo missions.

Well. The same model. (edit: it might be Mr Bonney's Pickett, above!)

The Ti30 calculator was a nerd's dream in the 70s... But Tom Swift always used a slide rule, so.

AA

Not many people under 60 would have any idea "who" Tom Swift is!

 

[Mr. Bonney]

I believe you are correct, AA. I was told that Pickett was the model (or similar) to the one Armstrong and Aldrin took with them.

Parts can be extremely hard to find for vintage rules, and expensive. But I've dealt with this company, and they are phenomenal. My K&E was missing the cursor finally found one for $40. It's frustrating to have a nearly century old tool and not be able to use it!

SRTCo: K&E Parts

 

[FarmerTan]

I believe you are correct, AA. I was told that Pickett was the model (or similar) to the one Armstrong and Aldrin took with them.

Parts can be extremely hard to find for vintage rules, and expensive. But I've dealt with this company, and they are phenomenal. My K&E was missing the cursor finally found one for $40. It's frustrating to have a nearly century old tool and not be able to use it!

SRTCo: K&E Parts

I can't believe this business exists! Thanks for that link my friend. Really cool.

 

[Chandu]

I never used a slide rule. I think my first calculator of any consequence was the TI something or other. In college I remember buying a Radio Shack one that allowed entering the whole equation in with parenthesis and all and then hitting calculate. Wonderful because you knew you didn't make a typo.

I remember my dad given a pocket calculator from his boss back in the 70's. I don't think he used it except perhaps as a novelty. While dad dropped out of high school, he was an engineer in the army. I remember him helping me with my geometry homework. It went like this.

Him: This angle is going be this.
Me: Why
Him: It has to be
Me: Sure but we have to explain why
Him: Damn it, it just is, accept it

20 years as a steamfitter after the army and 30 more as a custom gunsmith. I guess he could do all the math he needed to.

 

[cwright]

I used a guessing rod in college, still have it somewhere.....

 

[FarmerTan]

I never used a slide rule. I think my first calculator of any consequence was the TI something or other. In college I remember buying a Radio Shack one that allowed entering the whole equation in with parenthesis and all and then hitting calculate. Wonderful because you knew you didn't make a typo.

I remember my dad given a pocket calculator from his boss back in the 70's. I don't think he used it except perhaps as a novelty. While dad dropped out of high school, he was an engineer in the army. I remember him helping me with my geometry homework. It went like this.

Him: This angle is going be this.
Me: Why
Him: It has to be
Me: Sure but we have to explain why
Him: Damn it, it just is, accept it

20 years as a steamfitter after the army and 30 more as a custom gunsmith. I guess he could do all the math he needed to.

Your Dad and my Dad believed in letting the work speak for itself! They were too busy saving a nation to be bothered by a little thing like highskool!

 

[MaineYooper]

My Dad had one like this in his classroom in the 60s and 70s. After retirement, he tried to get it to display in his wood shop, but the school district threw it away! It was used for teaching his chemistry classes how to use one.

The one shown here was in a hotel in Portland, ME.