Anyone here use slide rules back in the day?

[Rusty Blade]

I found this Hughes-Owen slide rule today in a junk shop. I couldn't resist. It was saying, "Take me home!"

 

[FarmerTan]

I found this Hughes-Owen slide rule today in a junk shop. I couldn't resist. It was saying, "Take me home!"
View attachment 1539828

With the leather case!

 

[Rusty Blade]

With the leather case!

Yes! Real leather too!

 

[NotBloomingAL]

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...

I never used one, but my father had quite a few laying around the house when I was growing up. I don't think he bought a calculator until the trig functions were added. I remember when he brought the calculator home. He seemed pretty impressed by it. He was in the USAF, trained as an engineer. His only undergraduate degree was in mechanical engineering. He was also an aeronautical engineer and had a PhD in metallurgical engineering. I probably have one or two of his slide rules packed away in a box somewhere. I wouldn't know how to use one.

 

[FarmerTan]

I never used one, but my father had quite a few laying around the house when I was growing up. I don't think he bought a calculator until the trig functions were added. I remember when he brought the calculator home. He seemed pretty impressed by it. He was in the USAF, trained as an engineer. His only undergraduate degree was in mechanical engineering. He was also an aeronautical engineer and had a PhD in metallurgical engineering. I probably have one or two of his slide rules packed away in a box somewhere. I wouldn't know how to use one.

Your Dad sounds like a brilliant man.

 

[NotBloomingAL]

Your Dad sounds like a brilliant man.

He truly was. And he wasn't a nerdy guy; he was athletic and very out going and had a great sense of humor, like yours. It wasn't more than a year or two after he brought home that calculator that he died of a massive heart attack. He didn't quite reach the age of 47. Too bad I didn't inherit any of his intelligence. I only got his partially used bottle of English Leather.

 

[CCS]

I think 1970 was the last time I used a traditional slide rule. I took a one unit class in junior college as I needed the credit. I did use the old manual EA6B slide rule when I was flying in the 80's.

 

[KenM]

My Dad had one, he worked for Hercules when I was a kid. He tried to teach me how to use it but it didn't take. I pretty much had to give up on math until calculators became common.