Slide Rules Anyone??

Just wanted to mention one of my other vices.....vintage slide rules. I have a small collection of them dating from the 1930's till their very end in the early 1970's. I got a few from older engineers I worked with over the years and many come from eBay, estate sales and flea markets.
I'm always looking for ones I don't have and would either buy them or trade strops, etc....
On a more modern note I also have a few old Texas Instruments red LED scientific calculators.

Anyone here ever use these in the past?

Tony

My freshman year at Texas A&M (1973-74), my roomate received the first HP calculator (HP-35) from his dad - it cost $625! :eek:

I bought one the following year for half that amount. :p

Although HP still only makes a couple, I'll never give up on using Reverse Polish Notation calculators!!!!! :bow

I've got one around somewhere. Back in '84 in high school, I was carrying it around in my backpack playing around with it and was on my way to my physics final and dropped my TI calculator and smashed it to bits. I wound up taking the final using the slide rule. Made an 'A' too. My first day at Texas A&M I bought an HP 41C calculator. I still use it frequently, and it's still on the original batteries. That thing is a tank.

I believe that Tony H may have some and may even be dealing in'em. Make sure you ask him.

Now I really feel old. I used one not only in high school, but also when I was an electrical draftsman for GE before my military days. I used to draw transformers, lightning arrestors, and reclosers and used a slide rule for a ton of calculations.

I think I'd be lucky how to remember the process for multiplication on one of them these days.

I know I have about 4 or 5 around somewhere, one of them being ivory. They are in a box somewhere in the garage. Finding them is another story. Got to be over a thousand boxes inside other boxes in other boxes after our move.

If I run across them, I'll give you a jingle...

My freshman year (9th grade), my Science teacher, Mr. McDowell, had a slide rule that hung on the wall. It was huge, the kind of slide rule that JL would lust after! :y

He would give us problems to solve, and work out the solution on that big slide rule as fast or faster than we could with calculators.

Now that I think about Mr. McDowell, he was the kind of guy who would have used a straight razor. RIP!

RT

I've kept my trusty slide rule lo these many years... a Dietzgen, mahogany with nylon glides (it never had a problem on rainy days when most slide rules would bind from the wood swelling, lol). It's still in it's original leather case and looks/works as good as ever. Post was another big name in slide rules in those days. And I, like Bill, would probably have a tough time doing much more than simple mult/div on it, let alone it's real forte of logs and trig functions. I bought it in high school and used it thru college... there were no pocket calculators yet. Like many things from college, I never needed it in my work... I went the computer route and never looked back.

My dad had a little slide rule (maybe 6-inches long, all wood and pretty worn) that he used regularly as a mechanical engineer. I suspect it dated to no later than the depression era and probably wasn't new when he got it... he likely discarded it some years after he retired as I never saw it in his effects. But I still have his circa-1900 edition of Kents Mechanical Engineering Handbook... it's a hoot looking through that! Of course the math tables are accurate (log and trig tables never change), but you'd be amazed at the differences in the electrical and mechanical sections. By today's standards, some of that stuff is just wrong. The sections on wood and steam are fascinating.

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Originally Posted by Tony Miller

Just wanted to mention one of my other vices.....vintage slide rules. I have a small collection of them dating from the 1930's till their very end in the early 1970's. I got a few from older engineers I worked with over the years and many come from eBay, estate sales and flea markets.
I'm always looking for ones I don't have and would either buy them or trade strops, etc....
On a more modern note I also have a few old Texas Instruments red LED scientific calculators.

Anyone here ever use these in the past?

Tony

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I used a K&E log-log decitrig in college and in an earlier life, when I was an engineer. I still have. Just to give you an idea how long agp that was, it was the only way to do computing. We didn't even have basic electronic calculators.

A cheap scientific calculator has orders of magnitude more power than the slide rule and almost as much more power than the first computer I used without punching cards, the GE time sharing terminal.

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Originally Posted by mparker762

I've got one around somewhere. Back in '84 in high school, I was carrying it around in my backpack playing around with it and was on my way to my physics final and dropped my TI calculator and smashed it to bits. I wound up taking the final using the slide rule. Made an 'A' too. My first day at Texas A&M I bought an HP 41C calculator. I still use it frequently, and it's still on the original batteries. That thing is a tank.

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Of course, I took all my exams with a slide rule. It was fun to use, but it was too easy to make an error in decimal places.

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Originally Posted by azjoe

I've kept my trusty slide rule lo these many years... a Dietzgen, mahogany with nylon glides (it never had a problem on rainy days when most slide rules would bind from the wood swelling, lol). It's still in it's original leather case and looks/works as good as ever. Post was another big name in slide rules in those days.

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Mine is like that, but it's K&E Keufell and Esser. That was what seemed to be the most popular with students and later with engineers.

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And I, like Bill, would probably have a tough time doing much more than simple mult/div on it, let alone it's real forte of logs and trig functions. I bought it in high school and used it thru college... there were no pocket calculators yet. Like many things from college, I never needed it in my work... I went the computer route and never looked back.

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I suspect you could re-learn it in 15 minutes. The first pockrt calculators came within a few years of my graduation from college, they cost a fortune and were only very basic, hardly more than an adding machine.

I used it at my desk as an engineer, but even then non-mainframe computers were beginning to blossom. At work I had access to a teletype terminal that was connected to a GE time sharing service. It allowed you to work and program on the terminal instead of punching cards. Again, it was very basic.

The only way to do "complex" calculations in those days was with an analog computer, which we had at the office. The first useful scientific electronic calcualtor we had was rolled in on a cart. I only was an engineer for about six years and ended up in computers too, but then I went into an entirely different career.

You're a babe in you avatar, but in real life you're an old guy, like me.

I went through school in the late 60's using a Pickett model 2. It was copy right 1947. The advantage of the Pickett's was that they were aluminum.

I was working for H-P when they brought out the 35. The model number was based on the number of keys. Ten place accuracy and it could also add and subtract. There is still an HP users group in existance. they are having their annual meeting this weekend.

Joe,
The K&E rules are really nice. been trying to snag a good example of what you have, a K&E Log Log Duplex Decitrig. I use one for basic stuff at my real job just because it raises eyebrows a little when people see it instead of the usual calculator.

Just like with razors, slide rules on eBay get bid up pretty high for nice examples. I buy mine to play with and put on display so usualy want a near mint example but without the boxes and booklets that collectors crave. There are plenty of nice, wooden/celluloid rules that still only bring $20-30 and I always enjoy finding one with some unusual scales I have not seen before.

Tony

I see them by the dozens at the Antique fairs and carboots, they are quite common in England.
If you want something specific PM me and I will keep an eye out Cost & postage only. :tu
Tony

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Originally Posted by Tony Miller

Just wanted to mention one of my other vices.....vintage slide rules. I have a small collection of them dating from the 1930's till their very end in the early 1970's. I got a few from older engineers I worked with over the years and many come from eBay, estate sales and flea markets.
I'm always looking for ones I don't have and would either buy them or trade strops, etc....
On a more modern note I also have a few old Texas Instruments red LED scientific calculators.

Anyone here ever use these in the past?

Tony

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Originally Posted by Tony Miller

There are plenty of nice, wooden/celluloid rules that still only bring $20-30 and I always enjoy finding one with some unusual scales I have not seen before.

Tony

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THat doesn't sound bad. I think I paid a lot more n !960s dollars.

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Originally Posted by Joe Lerch

... but in real life you're an old guy, like me.

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:eek::eek::eek:

Like everyone of the day, I used my slide rule a lot in college to do the calculations we had to do... but the conversion tables insert that came with the Dietzgen has proved useful throughout my life... [pic here] ... today my slide rule is tucked away in storage, but that conversion table is in my desk drawer for handy reference.

I gotta be honest here. Figuring blade size (5/8, 6/8, etc) and the pyriamid are all the math I want to know. If we are going to have to start using slide rules to shave...I'm growing a beard!

RT

My father taught me to use a slide rule, in school we were the last class to get some training in their use. I am afraid I forgot how to use one.
I must have one somewhere but don't know where. I do even have a spare glass for it, with till receipt of 1979!

My father of 81 still uses them when he studies math. (his hobby).

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Originally Posted by rtaylor61

I gotta be honest here. Figuring blade size (5/8, 6/8, etc) and the pyriamid are all the math I want to know. If we are going to have to start using slide rules to shave...I'm growing a beard!

RT

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Yeah, but they have beautiful scales.

Tony,

I had a slide rule tie clip as a kid. I wonder where it is??:y

I've got a really nice slide rule stamped from a tech institute in Cleveland.

I learned how to use a slide-rule in 11th grade. Got to start using calculators in my senior year. I still have one left - it was my Dad's from when he was studying engineering when he was in the Marine Corps in WWII. It looks to be bamboo with white plastic venier and glass cursor. The cursor has a crack in it unfortunately. Made by J. Sun if I recall correctly and had some Japanese on it. I also have the matching triangular engineers ruler. I'd never part with them though; I'm too sentimental and nostalgic, just like I still shave with my grandfather's str8.

I think slide-rules are cool, just like I like straight razors and 18th century woodworking tools and fountain pens and black powder rifles and ...

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Originally Posted by RichZ

Tony,

I had a slide rule tie clip as a kid. I wonder where it is??:y

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I'm guessing wearing that included a good beating by the class bully?

RT

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Originally Posted by rtaylor61

I'm guessing wearing that included a good beating by the class bully?

RT

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When I was an engineering student, some of them walked around with slide rules on their belts, kind of like a cell phone. I think that deserves some sort of bully action.

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Originally Posted by rtaylor61

I'm guessing wearing that included a good beating by the class bully?

RT

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Didn't wear it for that reason:nj

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Originally Posted by RichZ

Didn't wear it for that reason:nj

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You're cool!

RT

Not to give away my age, but I saw a slide rule in a movie once lol....:w

Not that it really matters I have this fancy calculator now and I dont know how to use half the buttons (and thats being generous!)

I used a K&E all through engineering school,(6 years),I still have it and 4 or 5 others I picked up before they went away

Tony,

I will see what I can dig up; my father was a mechanical engineer and his father a engineering professor, I think I have a drawer full of slide rules somewhere.

Dave

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Originally Posted by Tobico4

Tony,

I will see what I can dig up; my father was a mechanical engineer and his father a engineering professor, I think I have a drawer full of slide rules somewhere.

Dave

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Dave,
I'll be your new best friend!!! Seriously though, I am always looking for examples I don't have and will purchase or trade strops, etc...for rules.

Thanks,
Tony

After reading all the posts about slide rules, I dug around in the garage and found one of my old slide rules. Its not so much that I can't remeber how to use it, the real problem is I can't read the numbers anymore (Too small! :shrug: )

Jim,
I would think that most of us that originally went through school using those things probably have a similar problem. I worked in electronics and at one time I would read the lettering on film resistors (RN55c...). It got to a point where I always carried a magnifing glass.

Rick

Does anybody have one of those six foot classroom demo slide rules?

Rick,
Those little number are tough. A few makers, K&E in particular made a magnifier to go over the cursour so old farts like me could read them <g>.
I just got an old Texas Instruments SR-10 which was TI's first "slide rule" calculator. Introduced in 1972 I think, it had the numbers, a clear button, square root, square and memory button.....that's it, and all for $149.95 when new. My 34 year old working example was $4.99 and has the tiniest little red LEDs which I can barely see.


As for the big teaching ones they turn up on eBay each week and usualy bring arould $100 or so. I don't even dare bring one of those home <g>.

Tony

Tony,
The magnifiers were there so that you could more accurately approximate the last digit. I had a 6" Pickett that I used on one test. I went to a 12" because one of my profs required better accuracy.

I remember the early TI units. One of them could do statistics. I also seem to remember that the readouts on the HP-35 and the LED watches (1975?) were on the order of 0.1 inches.

Rick

Rick,
Some of the financial calculators were the warly ones with the slide rule models a close second. It was HP who killed the slide rule with the HP-35, a $400 monster that was the first real slide rule calculator. I had the HP-85 (I think) that did vectors much easier than the TI but in that day you were cool if you owned the TI instead.

That was way back when in a other life........today I'm lucky if I can balance my checkbook let alone vectors.

BTW, the eBay slide rule sellers are not much different that the thieving bas&^%%s that sell "mint" razors. I got a few worthless, yet "mint" slide rules there lately. Maybe it's an eBay thing in general.

Tony

Good lord, slide rulers... That is like if some started collecting, say, old straight razors.

Nenad

Just in case anyone gets the urge to want to play with one of these I am selling a few spares/duplicates from my collection on eBay this week. All in the $10-$25 range but I will gladly sell direct first.

Tony

next time my wife rags on me about "collecting" razors, I'll tell her that it could be worse...I could be collecting slide rules lol :)