On 2/17/18 2:28 PM, Uncle Monster wrote:
On Saturday, February 17, 2018 at 10:08:55 AM UTC-6, Wade Garrett wrote:
On 2/16/18 8:34 PM, Uncle Monster wrote:
On Friday, February 16, 2018 at 9:11:28 AM UTC-6, rbowman wrote:
On 02/16/2018 05:37 AM, Dan S. MacAbre wrote:
I do have a slide rule, but never had to use it much. I still have my
old log books, too. I remember a few of the rich kids at the school (a
grammar school, so an interesting mixture of scruffy kids like me, and
rich kids) had the Sinclair calculators, and we'd have fun getting them
to display ShELLOIL and ESSOOIL.

In college the ultimate status symbol was a Keuffel & Esser slide rule
with the optional magnifying cursor carried on your belt in a leather
sheath.

Personally, I had a $1.50 plastic 'Accu-math' with just the C, D, and CI
scales. Periodic rubbing with a #2 drafting pencil kept the slide
sliding. I got the same answers as the $30 models.

When I was in college I had a K&E slide rule hanging from my belt. I was out of college when I met college students who had $700.00 to purchase an HP or TI calculator with the tiny little red LED dot display. What I own now was science fiction back then. ^_^

[8~{} Uncle Vintage Monster

On my first professional job back in the day, the boss ordered a large
10 key desk calculator with a lighted display from one of the big
"electronics" companies for about that same amount of money.

It was delivered a few days later by an A+ brunette sales babe wearing a
tight short skirt and tight sweater who gave a demonstration to the
department on how to use it's several features. You can tell what I
mainly remember from the meeting;-)
--


When I was a kid, my father worked in an office building with a bunch of other engineers in the engineering department for a steel mill. I remember the big old mechanical calculating machine on his desk that made all the wonderful clicking and clacking noises as the intricate gears and dials did their thing. I was well into adulthood before the huge old mechanical NCR cash registers started fading away. I kind of miss all the mechanical noise of everyday objects that surrounded me when I was a kid. Everything those big old machines did when I was a youngster can now be done by a device that fits in the palm of your hand. I must be a Luddite because I still don't own a smartass phone. I wonder if there's an app for that? ^_^

[8~{} Uncle Mechanical Monster


Yeah, I spent hours and hours in a college statistics lab hunched over a
20 pound Friden mechanical calculator- 10 columns of keys with 10 keys
from 1 to 0 in each column and lotsa little windows in the long top
carriage where the result numbers appeared.

There were about a dozen machines in the lab and if more than two or
three were being used, you could hear the clatter two halls over.

--
The fastest way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.