Slide Rules....Anyone remember them?

[Honorary Bloke]

My slide rule doesn't work any more, the numbers are blurry.

My slide rule (high school physics class) still works, but my brain is blurry and I can't for my life recall how to use it.

[Wongo]

Benny you made a mistake. The number in red shoud be 5 instead of 4.

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[bsrlee]

I'm just waiting for one of you to pull out a Babbage engine - I just want an agent's commission when you sell it.

The last (and I believe ONLY) fully working Babbage engine was found in Australia several years ago, in the possion of an elderely lady, whose father had brought it with him to Australia after retiring from the Indian Civil Service - I beleive the LOL got a VERY large sum of money for it at auction.

I know I should express that better, but my brain isn't working too well.....:confused:

[echnidna]

How many of you old pharts still have the brown paper bag yer slide rule came in when ya got it?

[MurrayD99]

Log tables, trig functions.... SOHCAHTOA. Oh ho. All these have been extremely useful.... Yep, I had a circular slide rule and a nice green and white one that is still around somewhere. Remember the ones made of wood with a melamine(?) surface.

[Felder]

Slide Rules;

1. All children must be supervised by an adult.

2. Please ensure that the slide is empty before embarking upon your descent.

3. Swearing will not be tolerated on the slide.

4. You must be this high to ride this slide.

5. Please do not tip water onto this slide.

6. One child at a time - NO TRAINS!

[bennylaird]

Bugr your right:eek: :eek: :eek:

Have to start my round table again bugr it

Benny you made a mistake. The number in red shoud be 5 instead of 4.

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[pedro the swift]

Slide rules?
Yep, used one years ago doing electrical/electronics stuff. Still got my Nestler Elektro and my Faber-Castell super rule with scales I never mastered.
Found them to be quick and certainly accurate enough for engineering use.
Still pick one up occasionally and have a short refresher for auld lang syne.
I did hear of a contest once where a slide rule operator was pitted against a calculator and the slide rule guy won for speed in doing accurate calcs.
Long Live the rule. No Batteries!

[jaspr]

I can't believe there is a long thread on slide rules.

I was cleaning out an old storage box in the workshop last week - to make room for more woodworking. It contained what was left of my life from uni days.

And there it was a slide rule in it's plastic cover - a Hemmi - I had to check. Can't for the life of it remember how to use it - so I couldn't convince my 11 year old son that it had any use at all!

I don't think I used it much. I used printed log tables in high school and then pretty well went on to the first calculators in uni. Someone mentioned buying one for $15 dollars. Not back then! The first one I got just did the 4 basic functions and had a single memory register. It was a plug-in version with an external transformer. It cost about $50 back then, from memory. The screen had big green numbers on it.

Anyone know the Munro Calculating Machine? One of my lecturers (he was a bit of an anachronism, even back then) insisted we use it - for a giggle.

It had a pull handle on it just like a poker machine. You entered some numbers into it, pulled the handle, mechanical things whirred and whizzed, and the answer was printed - I think - onto a roll of paper.

And then there was the university computer ... punched cards ... lodged in batches for the operators to run ... don't get me started!

ok .. I'll finish now.

[AlexS]

Anyone know the Munro Calculating Machine? One of my lecturers (he was a bit of an anachronism, even back then) insisted we use it - for a giggle.

It had a pull handle on it just like a poker machine. You entered some numbers into it, pulled the handle, mechanical things whirred and whizzed, and the answer was printed - I think - onto a roll of paper.

And then there was the university computer ... punched cards ... lodged in batches for the operators to run ... don't get me started!

ok .. I'll finish now.

Oh yeah, the Munro. Used one in the army. Sure, they had a printer, but they weren't a patch on the Facits. Key in the multiplicand, crank in the multiplier, the result comes up in a window. For division, turn the crank the other way. But the Rolls Royce of calculators was the Vega, designed during the war by a concentration camp inmate and made by him after the war.

We had another electrical calculator at work - can't remember the brand - that we used to drive almost to self-destruction by dividing 0 into 0. The motor just kept accellerating. It siezed up once, so someone sprayed it with WD40. When they switched it on, there was a flash and a puff of smoke, but the calculator worked.

[Iain]

Slightly off topic I have seen the Chinese use the abacus with amazing speed, agility and accuracy, then there are the finger counters which I first thought was a joke until I found out that this ancient art utilise ten fingers and the knuckles represent 10's 100's 1000's etc.
There is a name for it but I cannot recall what it is, but these people performed some amazing calculations utilising what they were born with.

[Chris Parks]

That was an interesting book....Slide Rule by Neville Shute when he and Barnes Wallace engineered an air ship. The chapter describing the teams of engineeers doing all the calculations for the air ship structure was amazing. it took them weeks to do it all and if the answer wasn't right they went back to see where the error was and all done with slide rules. Well worth the read.

[Ashore]

When they switched it on, there was a flash and a puff of smoke, but the calculator worked.

Not like these days Alex once you let the smoke out the thing is cactus

[javali]

Anyone know the Munro Calculating Machine? One of my lecturers (he was a bit of an anachronism, even back then) insisted we use it - for a giggle.

Some may be wondering what you are talking about...

[joe greiner]

Yup. Had one almost like that. Partially "repaired" it once. As I recall, under each column of keys was, in effect, a ten-speed transmission.

On some other models (electric), you could set up a division problem so that it "played" a "tune."

JG