Anyone ever use a slide rule ?

[JMayo]

I got this in a yard sale thinking "cool".
Humm, it'll take longer to learn how than it's worth.

The paragraph on "Who should use the slide rule" is interesting.

Copyright 1932

 

[itchyTF]

I did but a very long time ago.

Private secretary???

 

[hoz53]

K&E was one of the top companies making slide rules and engineering supplies. I have some Post Versalogs. We had to learn to use slide rules in high school but handheld calculators came out sometime when i was in high school. they were expensive at first but that was pretty much the end for slide rules. What are you gonna do with this slide rule???Versalogs.

 

[Straightshooter1]

Was using my slide rule in college, then the HP-35 became available and replaced it.



It sure beats this :

 

[Outrider27]

I still have the slide rule I used in college, which makes it about 59 years old, a long time before the HP35 showed up. And when it arrived, I liked the HP35 a lot better.

 

[NMUltra]

I've still got a couple sticks, and a circular one I got in high school physics class. I still use the circular one to calculate bicycle gear and gain ratios (thank you, Sheldon Brown). Got a HP21 as a graduation present.

 

[Kittitas George]

I carried a slide rule and a Curta calculator way back, when the HP-35 came along. Even the office calculators couldn't do 'square root', a must for trigonometry and surveyors. The HP-35 was $450 dollars, lots of bucks when wages were $3.25/hour. A few of us at 'coffee club' are engineer types and used a slide rule. So I took my slide rule to coffee, no one could remember how to use it or could see the lines.

 

[Steve Blair]

I used slide rules in high school. By college, they were all replaced with HP calcs.
My stepfather had a German made, table style, double slide rule about two feet long. It had a magnifying cursor and he bragged about its precision. I have no idea why it had two slides.

 

[Kittitas George]

Was using my slide rule in college, then the HP-35 became available and replaced it.

View attachment 1344116

It sure beats this :
View attachment 1344117

Would you like to have a 'field carrying case for that HP? I have one and maybe the manual. I'd be glad to give them to you. The HP is in good shape for 50 years old.

 

[Daddymac]

You guys must be older than me, I had a HP-41CV with a card reader to load formula that would calculate a solution based on variables entered for balancing rotating machinery. I do remember a slide rule in our house as a kid, think is was my sisters I was just a little behind the cutoff line.

 

[jelenko]

I used a K and E through high school and college. The HP 35 was introduced after I graduated.

 

[JEFFPPC]

Yep, in high school and college to a lesser extent.

 

[okie]

I worked in a paper mill back in my college days in the summers.
Some of the old engineers still used them...and drafting tables!
I worked for a younger guy and he used a HP and CAD.
They smoked inside as well....some even smoked pipes.
That was early 90's

Things change fast.

 

[nmkid]

So I took my slide rule to coffee, no one could remember how to use it or could see the lines.

Bhahahahahaha. I resemble that remark.

 

[6ShotsOr5?]

Yep, used a slide rule for one year in high school before I could afford a calculator. Used a drafting table and computer punch cards in college. Does anybody remember using (or making) nomographs?

 

[PopCharlie]

I got this in a yard sale thinking "cool".
Humm, it'll take longer to learn how than it's worth.

The paragraph on "Who should use the slide rule" is interesting.
View attachment 1344107View attachment 1344106
Copyright 1932

Looks like the one my dad used. He was a mathematician, worked for IBM. He taught all of us kids to use one. I haven't used one since the mid 1960s.
PopCharlie

 

[butchlambert]

Used one in HS Physics class.

 

[bsekf]

Remember using logarithms in college Strength of Materials class on a slide rule. That was 10 years before hand held calculators. My cousin worked for IBM on the first Univac. Remember him telling about how proud they were to get it from room size down to grand piano size. Ten years later Texas Instruments sold one for $10 that was faster and you could carry it in your shirt pocket.

 

[5spd]

I had one way back in jr and sr high math class use.

 

[chkunz]

I bought one when I entered engineering school in 1960 and graduated using it. I went to work in 1965 on the Saturn V moon rocket and that is what we had to work with, no hand held calculators. I still have that same slide rule and could use it if I had to today.