Bring Back the 80's!

Slides Rule

So I just came across an article on Wired that talks about the history of Slide Rules, and about the hanger-onners who still collect them, use them, and geek out over the entire concept.

What an amazing coincidence :)

Here is my slide rule collection:

The small white one and medium sized yellow ones I got from my childhood neighbor Garth Steltonpohl. The yellow one is a picket, and only one step down in class from the large white one, which I got from my uncle David (who also gave me an 8088 that he bought in 1984 for upwards of $4000). And then there is the peice of resistance, the small round slide rule, given to me by Lauren Rasmussen. All of these artifacts were actually used by their previous owners in previous professions where they all worked in electrical engineering or architecture.

Here is a closeup of the large white slide and it's instruction manual:

This slide rule has extra scales which allow it to do exponentiation and some other ridiculously crazy things. I used to be able to read these blasted manuals :)

Here is a closeup on the round slide and it's impossibly rad insert:

I only show one side of the insert, but this tiny 3x4" card is packed with literally every scientific, geometric, measure conversion, or chemistry formula I've ever even vaguely heard about. You can see them in the blowup, the opposite side has eight conversion tables and a copy of the greek alphabet.

And get what's on the back:

A full featured, highly detailed periodic table. That thing happens to be the most potently scientific object of non-electronic persuation I've ever laid eyes on. You'll notice a crack along the bottom and the hairline slider tip is broken off because I used to carry it around in my pocket everywhere I went in eighth grade.

My stand is that, in an age where we nearly run down the batteries doing remote firmware installs on a martian rover and JPL can't tell feet from meters and loses two martian probes, it is interesting to remember how slide rules built the golden gate bridge, statue of liberty, and guided apollo 13 safely home.

Posted by jesse at September 8, 2004 11:54 PM