Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/12/06

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Subject: [Leica] Slide Rules [was Re: [LRflex] Digital Leica "M"]
From: r.s.taylor at comcast.net (Richard S. Taylor)
Date: Tue Dec 6 11:03:11 2005
References: <NEBBJDFBIKOBILIKPPBNGECIDDAB.red735i@earthlink.net>

Good Lord, a slide rule thread!  My high school in Brooklyn had 9- or 
10-footers over the blackboard in every classroom.  They were removed 
a dozen or more years ago as obsolete and put into storage.  Our 
alumni association has been auctioning them off at yearly reunions 
for quite a while now so they must be gone.  I'm surprised to hear 
they are rare.

I wonder what one does with a 10-foot slide rule.  Hang in in your 
living room, maybe?

Most everyone I knew used K&Es but I was a big fan of the Picketts - 
still own three of them - though the oxidation on the slides sure 
left your hands dirty after a long homework session.  Have one 
six-inch K&E, too.  (Why so many?  It's sort of like collecting Leica 
lenses, right?)

I used them for years until the HP35 calculator was introduced -at 
$435.00 in 1972 dollars.

Mine are all seriously shopworn.  Like a lot of older technologies 
they were nice to use because you could  easily understand the 
underlying principle of operation.

We used to say engineering was a three-digit world, exactly the 
resolution of the slide rule.  Now, it's commonly a five or six digit 
world with many calculations many, many digits more.

>Speaking of slide rules, which of course, we were not really doing...
>
>MIT has the old K+E collection of slide rules.  I wonder if BD or someone
>else knows if they are available on display?
>
>Apparently there are some really weird ones.....
>
>I found the article in my father's copy of the MIT Alumni journal.
>Apparently the "curator" thought that the really large, around 6 foot, slide
>rule for teaching was really rare....  She looked around 30 years old.
>
>How many of us in our 50's or 40's were put through slide rule learning
>using one of these old timers?
>How many of us still remember how to use a slide rule?
>How many of us still OWN a slide rule?
>How many of us still USE a slide rule?
>
>Old Timers........Youngsters....... and Slide rules....
>
>Frank Filippone
>red735i@earthlink.net
>
>
>
>  Yes I know that there are a handful of so-called
>"classic" computer collectors, like slide rule collectors.
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Leica Users Group.
>See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information


-- 
Regards,

Dick
Boston MA

Replies: Reply from bdcolen at comcast.net (B. D. Colen) ([Leica] Slide Rules [was Re: [LRflex] Digital Leica "M"])
Reply from reid at mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (Brian Reid) ([Leica] Slide Rules [was Re: [LRflex] Digital Leica "M"])
In reply to: Message from red735i at earthlink.net (Frank Filippone) ([Leica] Re: [LRflex] Digital Leica "M")