History Buff this month...

[Johnnywiffer]

However...

When I was in college in the mid-fifties, I actually took a course in slide rule. I was an engineer major and most others of my ilk sported very expensive "slip-sticks", with scales on both sides and all kinds of sine/tangent/co-tangent, ad infinitum. These fabulous what-chama-callits cost upwards of $20. Mine was so cheap (I think it set me back about $3-$4) it only had scales on 1 side. The other side had metric conversions, in case I was attacked by a stray milimeter that needed to be converted.



John

[skyway]

Youe holster description, reminds me of the math heads when I was in college, circa 1972-76.
Same holster & swager thing, but show casing a BIG hand held calculator.

[BeeJay]

Still have my K&E. Absolutely no use for it now other than a conversation piece. Most people now don't even know what it is.
Bob

[studegary]

In the 1950s, I won a 5 inch K & E log-log duplex decitrig (hope that my memory is correct on that) at a Science Fair. Most engineers used the ten inch version.
Two memories created with it;
1) My sister tried to measure something with my BiL's 10 inch K & E. She found out that was futile.
2) After 25 years of ownership of mine, I was asked to speak at local high school science fair awards ceremony. I brought the slide rule with me. I opened my speach by saying that the students and most of the parents probably do not know what this is.

[sweetolbob]

Still have my K&E. Absolutely no use for it now other than a conversation piece. Most people now don't even know what it is.
Bob

BeeJay, I still have mine also in the belt case as well as the smaller pocket model. Got a lot of use out of those units.

Darn glad TI got jiggy with calculators shortly after that.

Bob

[GinettaG12P]

Still have mine, too. I used it one time to make my own log-linear graph paper.

[JimK]

I have my yellow Pickett and bought a big K&E a few years back at an antique mall. My favorite was a circular one that got lost, but you never had to swap ends with it.

For serious work the government labs would sometimes issue really big ones, maybe 2 or 3 feet long.

(Maybe I should start a thread on Marchant calculators :-)

[southbend]

Didn't Sam Cooke once sing, "Don't what a slide rule is for"? And that was back in the early 60s.

[BobPalma]

Interesting discussion, Johnny.

Having gone to Purdue, I remember an entire wall of each independent book store around campus festooned with hundreds of slide rules of every imaginable complexity and price. 'Can't help but wonder where they all are today.

('Talk about a technology revolution, eh?) BP

[Blue 15G]

Back in 1970 our high school started an arrangement with a local vo-tech school where Junior and Senior class students could go to the regular high school for half a day and the other half was spent at the vo-tech. A friend of mine took up electronics at the vo-tech. I recall him saying that one of the first classes involved a thorough lesson in learning to use the slide rule. I think the now-common calculator appeared about 1974. My Dad (an engineer) bought one of the best ones made at the time by Texas Instruments, and it cost around $150!

[jims53]

I thought it had something to do with baseball!!