17 Feb
2020
17 Feb
'20
4:10 a.m.
On Sun, Feb 16, 2020 at 4:47 PM Wesley Parish <wobblygong(a)gmail.com> wrote:
FWVLIW - I bought a Dover book on slide rule in the
late 70s while at
high school, and shortly after, a real slide rule, and it's stuck with
me.
My dad taught me with a plastic slide rule he put in our stocking in the
early/mid 1960s. This was how I (and many others) learn about
interpolation. I also learned to make log/log paper with it. A few years
later, my grandfather died when I was in engineering school. My grandmother
sent me his slide rule to remember him by (which I still have). Although
she did not know that at the time, I already owned the then hot item, a TI
SR50 scientific calculator - which I paid the $150 in 1972 dollars (about
$900 in today's money). I also got his drafting table, but I no longer
have that. The slide rule is made of ivory on top of metal (I think
bronze but I never had it checked). It was probably made in the 1920s. It
stays in a box in desk ;-)
A slightly, sad part is I don't think either of my kids knows how to use
it, and while both have degrees in science, I don't think either wants it.