On 2009-04-30, Ivan Vegvary wrote:

"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
On 2009-04-30, Ivan Vegvary wrote:
How many of you have taken this road? Those that have know what I'm
talking
about.

Slide Rule, Marchant, Friden, Monroe, Curta, HP35, HP45, HP67, HP95,
Wang,
IBM PC, DOS, IBM XT, $395 for 64K Ram card, VisiCald, Wordstar
modern day PCs and CAD programs.

Slide rules (many over the years), Best current one is a 20"
mahogany and ivory K&E, (and for fun a 36" store demo
Picket log-log.)

Always wanted a 20" or a 8" plus diameter circular rule. When I saw them in
pawn shops, I still could not afford it. it.

This one was abandoned by a retired worker where I was.

I never got a cylindrical slide rule, but I now have a pocket
watch format circular slide rule made in Russia which I got from eBay a
few years ago.

Probably the slide rule which got the most use was one from
Lafayette radio (remember them) -- a rather nice log-log duplex which
had marginal cursor life, so I adapted a replacement cursor for a K&E to
it. It had to be shimmed with some thin plastic sheet because the rule
body was a little thicker than the K&E was.

That Lafayette was the one which nearly got me arrested. I was
living in a rooming house while working for Transitron in Wakefield
Mass, and felt like a Coke at about 11:00 PM. So, I walked down the
stairs, about a block to the corner gas station, and dropped a nickel in
the machine (one of the slide the bottle through a maze to the exit
hatch style).

When I got my Coke, and turned around, I found myself facing an
expanse of blue police uniform. (They hired them *big* there. :-)

He asked me a long string of questions, which I answered, and
when I was figuring that he had run out of questions, and I might be
able to get back before the Coke got too hot, he snaps: "O.K. Let's
see that knife you have!"

"What knife?"

"Don't play cute with me -- *that* knife!" as he points to the
leather slide rule scabbard hanging from my belt.

So -- I open the case, gently draw the sliderule from it, and
present it to him supported on my palms.

His jaw dropped, he turned, and got in his patrol car and drove
off without a word. :-)

[ ... list snipped ... ]

From the above, it looks like you've done it all!!

Actually -- no. Among other things, I never had an Intel 8080
based system (nor a Zilog Z80 based system), nor one which ran CP/M.
After my homebrew minimal OS built around a digital cassette tape drive,
I moved on to the SWTP 6800 and 6809 with SSB's (Smoke Signal
Broadcasting's) DOS-68 and DOS-69, and then on to OS-9 for the 6809
system.

Enjoy,
DoN.

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