From: stewarts@ix.netcom.com
Date: Sat, 2 Nov 1996 00:28:24 -0800 (PST)
To: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>
Subject: Re: Sliderules, Logs, and Prodigies
Message-ID: <1.5.4.32.19961102082625.003b226c@popd.ix.netcom.com>
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At 10:30 AM 11/1/96 -0800, you wrote:
>Seriously, only a very few of us had and used sliderules...mine was a big
>synthetic K & E (Keuffel and Esser, as I recall). The raging "DOS vs. Mac"
>or "RISC vs. CISC" debate of that age was "aluminum" (the yellow Dietzgens)
>vs. the old standby, "bamboo." Plus some oddball circular sliderules.

I used plastic ones, myself; they were good enough for any work
I was doing, even after the occasional rebuild when the [whatever you
call the clear slider with the line on it] fell off.
Started with the basic model, and later a wider log-log-trig model.
I also had a few circular ones, including a big car-rally model
that let you get an extra digit or so of precision (remember when
precision was measured in digits rather than bits? :-)

There were also a variety of nomographs and other weird slide-rules
and graphical tools that were simple analog computers.  We used some
of them in electrical engineering classes for complex calculations
that didn't need to be highly precise, which most of them didn't
in a world where the extra-fancy resistors had 5% tolerances
and you achieved accuracy by adding various tweakers instead.

ObCrypto: Secret Decoder Rings are more or less circular slide rules,
but there really isn't much crypto you can do in analog.  :-)


#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk
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