Using The Slide Rule In Electronic Technology
https://www.sliderulemuseum.com/Man...uleInElectronicTechnology_ECharlesAlvarez.pdf
24MB PDF
https://www.sliderulemuseum.com/Man...uleInElectronicTechnology_ECharlesAlvarez.pdf
24MB PDF
Cool.
As a physics major in college in the 1960s, I had a similar publication from K&E for my slide rules. They work well and efficiently, once you learn how.
Then a couple years later, Texas Instrument came out with this new-fangled four function calculator you could hold in your hand. Had red LED numbers behind little magnifying lenses.
As a physics major in college in the 1960s, I had a similar publication from K&E for my slide rules. They work well and efficiently, once you learn how.
Then a couple years later, Texas Instrument came out with this new-fangled four function calculator you could hold in your hand. Had red LED numbers behind little magnifying lenses.
At school we practiced interpolating by head the 4.digit of our 3 digit logarithm tables. The slide rule came later and was a great step forward at that time. Which reminds me I must be a kinda aulde guy.
Probably not electronics-specific? (Of course if you need electronics-specific instructions, you don't know what you are doing.)
My non-analog tool was a Sinclair kit. Never got the last short out.
Spent years with a TI-30 bubble-LED on my chair.
But still have 3+ "slide rules" within a foot:
None exotic or nice. The "see-thru" is of course parallel-sticks for map marking. The filthy alloy-ended job is my frequent tool, an Accu-Design of no great merit. The Lawrence is an odd duck, but has not aged well and hardly slips. The leather is a sad Dietzgen: once a fine slipstick, as near as I can tell one of the 'ivory' facings got split/broke off the wood core, and glued back upside-down. At least I can not fine any way all the scales can line-up correctly, and I do see chipping (I think the facing did not come off easy; I can see a kid using Dad's stick to pry a cookie-jar).
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I got a plastic Pickett slide rule as a gift just before I trundled off to college in 1971 - I could never afford one of those newfangled electronic calculators until grad school, when I bought a Sinclair Scientific. I certainly couldn't afford an HP35 back then - some of the more affluent students had them. The range of functions available on an HP35 then looks ludicrous when compared to a $10-20 Sharp or Casio drug store special now...
You two must be very old. Slide rules have been around since like 1620. Mannheim gathered most of the ideas we know by 1859 and got it adopted by French Gunners. Yes, the "popular price" sticks are more like mid 20th century. By 1964 the plastic sticks were flooding the student market. The Stirlings were very very good. But over-ambitious-- they aimed for MASS production and were still growing when the TI calcs started. I used to drive past that defunct factory daily.
My "leather" of course went on a belt. But both the belt loop and the flap-latch have been busted-off and lost.
The histories are interesting. A lot of US-market sticks were, of course, made in Germany or Japan, who were reputed to be good at such work. Except in the WWII period, for obvious reasons. Meaning the US stick makers had to pick up production a lot. Nevil Shute writes of multiple computers (a job description not a machine) working slide-rules for MONTHS to compute an airframe.
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I paid Rupees 425 in 1983 for a Casio fx-3600P (programmable), about $40 then. Still have it, works.
In 2018 I paid 20 cents for a working Casio fx-100 at the flea market.
My uncle had a plastic German - (Rotring / Staedtler / Faber Castell - I forgot) slide rule from his college days, he gave it to a friend whose son was not allowed a scientific calculator in engineering school. They had to have slide rules....
Another new wrinkle some years back was when I was asked for a graphing calculator, apparently needed to give the exam for a top American college.
It was not available here, so they had to get it elsewhere, about $150 new at that time.
Those show graphs, and the amount of functions they have will make your head spin.
In 2018 I paid 20 cents for a working Casio fx-100 at the flea market.
My uncle had a plastic German - (Rotring / Staedtler / Faber Castell - I forgot) slide rule from his college days, he gave it to a friend whose son was not allowed a scientific calculator in engineering school. They had to have slide rules....
Another new wrinkle some years back was when I was asked for a graphing calculator, apparently needed to give the exam for a top American college.
It was not available here, so they had to get it elsewhere, about $150 new at that time.
Those show graphs, and the amount of functions they have will make your head spin.
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I still have my "large" Staedtler Slide rule, plastic of course, bought in '69,the more portable half sized Staedtler-Mrs one, a circular one, all 3 general purpose, no dedicated Electronics types available here buy all you can eat of Civil Engineering types, including specialized Concrete ones, Metallic-Parabolic roof ones, bridge (concrete and metallic) ones,etc.
Architects and Civil Engineers always had big pockets here and could splurge.
We Electronic guys had to make do with the general purpose ones but I always had a pocket notepad with lots of often used/needed Electronics calculations, prearranged so I could pencil starting variables (rest of equations was in ink) in proper white spaces/"windows", play with sliders and again pencil results in proper boxes.
So I had "batteryless" keyboard (pencil), CPU (slide rule) and display/printer (handwritten results) in a very portable way.
Considering pocket calculators weren´t yet available and our IBM1620 occupied two air conditioned rooms, not bad for a portable and light solution.
MAIN bonus: we had to reserve Computer time, sometimes a week before, while the other system was available 24/7
Architects and Civil Engineers always had big pockets here and could splurge.
We Electronic guys had to make do with the general purpose ones but I always had a pocket notepad with lots of often used/needed Electronics calculations, prearranged so I could pencil starting variables (rest of equations was in ink) in proper white spaces/"windows", play with sliders and again pencil results in proper boxes.
So I had "batteryless" keyboard (pencil), CPU (slide rule) and display/printer (handwritten results) in a very portable way.
Considering pocket calculators weren´t yet available and our IBM1620 occupied two air conditioned rooms, not bad for a portable and light solution.
MAIN bonus: we had to reserve Computer time, sometimes a week before, while the other system was available 24/7
Used the good old slide rule all through high school which served me well. In 1974 for the first year of college I bought an HP-45 which cost $400 CDN .... that was equal to 5 months of student room and board. It was worth it for electronics because the polar / rectangular conversion function saved a lot of time for impedance calculations, etc. Still works 48 years later.