[Leica] Re Old Stuff

[ric at cartersxrd.net (RicCarter)]

I remember how proud I was when I figured out how to use a slide rule from 
reading articles in books

I was in the 6th or 7th grade and thought that stick was pretty close to 
magic

Never did get one of those glorious bamboo ones

ric



> On Nov 3, 2015, at 4:30 PM, Jim Nichols <jhnichols at lighttube.net> wrote:
> 
> Hi Larry,
> 
> I have to admit to having an E-6B, a gift from one of the kids, shortly 
> before I received two mechanical heart valves, and had to give up flying.  
> I never learned to manipulate it, though that brings to mind a cardboard 
> circular from Exxon that I carried in my flight kit. My kids went off to 
> college in the 70s, and I still have some TI and HP calculators in drawers 
> behind me.  I have used an HP 32S for the last 25 years and it is still 
> doing fine by me.
> 
> I have also "killed" a few old cameras over the years, in search of 
> knowledge of how they worked.  Packed away, I have everything from my 
> father-in-law's wooden 8x10 studio camera to a Polaroid SX-70.
> 
> Jim Nichols
> Tullahoma, TN USA
> 
> On 11/3/2015 2:23 PM, Larry Zeitlin via LUG wrote:
>>  Jim,
>>      It is good to see that another old timer recognizes the wonders of 
>> the slide rule. When you used a slide rule you had to partially solve the 
>> problem in your head. The slide rule simply gave you the mantissa, the 
>> significant figures, not the exponent. So you had to have some idea of 
>> the magnitude of the answer. Thus .03 and 300 look alike. The learned 
>> ability to estimate the magnitude of an answer is lost with most modern 
>> computing methods. I often got absurd answers from many of my students 
>> who used the latest electronic calculators.
>>      The slide rule is still the best tool for figuring out proportions. 
>> A circular slide rule was awkward to carry but it never went off the 
>> scale and the length was far greater than the physical dimension. A 6 
>> inch circular rule is equivalent to an 18 inch linear one. It could be 
>> easily read to three significant figures and a fourth figure could be 
>> estimated. I believe that a number of pilots still use E6B circular slide 
>> rules, reddubbed as ?Aviation Flight Computers.? Again, no batteries 
>> needed.
>>      As I said there is a lot of other stuff interred in the bottom 
>> drawers, including 8, yes 8, Leicas ranging from a IIIb to a pair of M3s, 
>> an old digital Leica (rebadged from a Fuji), a Russian imitation of a 
>> Nazi Luftwaffe Leica. a 1927 Leica 1 and a CL. I?m not a collector, just 
>> a pack rat. I bought cheap stuff, Leicas, Robots, Contaxes and Minoxes 
>> from old camera stores and put them back in working condition, although I 
>> had the M3s CLAd by Sherri Krauter. But as I said in a long ago post my 
>> kids will probably discard all the antique cameras, wondering what the 
>> old man did with all that mechanical junk when all photography is digital.
>>      I confess that I gave into the siren song of electronics by buying 
>> one of the first HP 35 calculators for the outrageous sum of $395. It was 
>> replaced with an HP 45 and then an HP 65. All at ever lowering prices. A 
>> couple of years ago I bought a half dozen Chinese made calculators with 
>> far more capability than the HP models. They cost $1 each. I can afford 
>> to throw them away when the batteries die. Digital photography seems to 
>> be following the same route.
>>      Larry Z
>> 
>> 
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>> 
> 
> 
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