On 2009-01-26, Bill Noble wrote:
I've seen plenty of paper/cardboard calculators for all sorts of things, but
this weekend I ran across a "real" slide rule put out by a hydraulics
company with a couple of scales added for calculating hydraulic/pneumatic
stuff

it's pictured here on ebay ---
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=300289178419

I see that you've caved in to eBays "paypal only" approach.

What I'm wondering, since this is the first of this style that I've seen, is
how common was this? Most folks I know who were engineers in the 50s had a
Pickett or K&E slide rule, so I'm kind of surprised that anyone would
actually do much with this, but maybe it was aimed at non-engineers?

This was probably aimed at people who did purchasing of the
hydraulic cylinders and supplies, to free them from having to ask the
engineers to do all the calculations when they have questions. These
would have been people who knew how to use a sliderule, but who did not
carry the various formulae and constants around in their heads, so the
GAL and DIA scales helped them come up with quick answers.

Enjoy,
DoN.

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