http://www.antiquark.com/sliderule/sim/n909es/virtual-n909-es.html
(click-n-drag to move things)
(click-n-drag to move things)
Engineering and math nerds - Do you still remember how to use it?
- Thread starter Haertig
- Start date
Help Support Homesteading & Country Living Forum:
I've got 2 of those around somewhere. One my step dad gave me when I was a kid. Don't remember how to use it.
We were not allowed to use calculators my first year in college. They were considered too expensive for the average student to afford. So slide rules were mandated, to keep things fair.
Nowadays, a slide rule costs much more than a calculator.
Nowadays, a slide rule costs much more than a calculator.
Still have a K&E Log Log Duplex Decitrig in the desk drawer.
My calculator from my college days, still sitting on my office desk:
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2017
- Messages
- 529
I can only remember how to add and subtract on slide rule. We used it in geometry mostly and some in physics class in high school. My dad was math teacher and required it. Graduated in 1972 and never used it again. I have daddy's slide rule stored in gun safe. It is frozen and have not taken it apart to clean it. He could do it in is head most of time. I had him for 5 years of math classes. Husbands is somewhere in a box. Never needed it in math classes at SHSU.
In electronics school, we used slide rules. Once I got out of school I never used or needed one again.
With sites like this, you can figure out almost anything you need to figure.
Engineering ToolBox
I do have a slide rule to figure out how much concrete you need. A much simpler tool but I remember my Dad using it so he didn't have to pay for a partial truckload of cement. You never want to be a half-yard short.
With sites like this, you can figure out almost anything you need to figure.
Engineering ToolBox
I do have a slide rule to figure out how much concrete you need. A much simpler tool but I remember my Dad using it so he didn't have to pay for a partial truckload of cement. You never want to be a half-yard short.
Last edited:
Is that a 12C? I have one just like it i use most every day
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2020
- Messages
- 9,361
Ha ha!
Addition and subtraction can be done with normal rulers not any slide I owned. We had to use slide rules in high school chemistry and physics because there weren't enough outlets in the class rooms to plug in calculators. The one on my desk is shown below.
Multiplication and division
It will also do recipricols, squares,square roots, cubes, logs, sin, and tangents.
I want to keep my skill with the slide rule so I can do quick math post-TEOTWAWKI.
Ben
Attachments
I have that exact Precision slide rule! Figures, I cannot find my high-end nice bamboo one (a Pickett), but I can find that plastic Precision one!
I can't believe you still have the manual for it. That manual looks like something Indiana Jones found in an ancient tomb. It might have value at an archaeological auction somewhere.
I can't believe you still have the manual for it. That manual looks like something Indiana Jones found in an ancient tomb. It might have value at an archaeological auction somewhere.
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2020
- Messages
- 9,361
Were those images good enough to read to relearn how to use yours?
Mine probably dates back to late 70s.
Ben
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2020
- Messages
- 9,361
These are two oldest pocket calculators I have in my museum ild old tech.I only missed it by a few years.
We had these instead:
We wuz high-tech baby!!!View attachment 63309
I can only guess circa early to mid 80s.
But my oldest is 1884!
It is a collection of tables that let find the cost of multiple items at different costs.
Trivia time!
One of the ways Galileo made money was by working out the balistic tables used for cannons that they gunners know how much charge and angle of elevation.
Ben
Attachments
The images are actually quite good. I will pull our my old Precision and mess around with it and those instructions you posted. I know there are a ton of generic slide rule instructions on the web (I have used those), so I can use those as supplemental info. It is nice to see instructions specifically for the exact model slide rule though - that makes things pretty crystal clear in the instructions. Sometimes you have to read between the lines when looking at generic instructions. Every few years I seem to go back and relearn the slide rule. Multiplication and division never fall from my memory (yet!) - those are very simple slide rule procedures - but other operations sometimes take a minor review to re-register them in my brain. Use it or lose it, I guess. Something almost as simple - like finding the square root of a number - I'll look at the slide rule like a confused turkey, and then have to go find some instructions to review. Easy to relearn, hard to retain (for my pitiful brain anyway).
Mine is an 11C, probably from around 1981.
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2020
- Messages
- 3,531
Hahaha! I had a TI 81 , Autocad and the beginning of the internet in college....but I have seen one of those ( don't know how to use it )
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2020
- Messages
- 3,531
Hahaha! I had a TI 81 , Autocad and the beginning of the internet in college....but I have seen one of those ( don't know how to use it )
I don't use any of those things because I avoid math like the plague. What little math I do can be accomplished with the calculator on my phone...
I got mine in 1984. I bet there isn't much difference in them. HP Don't make those any more. I got one for work, but it was a financial model. Don't do what I need, although its good to have. I forget it's model #. For some reason I want to say 12D. Lots of folks can't figure out the HP's and the enter button. I've got to where I can't hardly use a TI or other models.
I don't use any of those things because I avoid math like the plague. What little math I do can be accomplished with the calculator on my phone...
I'd bet there are app's that would replicate anything the calculators shown.
Probably true. I'm not going to waste my phone's memory on them though!
Sometimes required for my job.
I never took any higher level math in school. Wish I had, it would save me much heartache at times. I just have to figure it out as I go. Too damn old now to go back to school
I never took any higher level math in school. Wish I had, it would save me much heartache at times. I just have to figure it out as I go. Too damn old now to go back to school
For Android, "HiPER Scientific Calculator" app is pretty good (but it has ads at the top of the display).
To get to settings (it's not obvious!), look for the button labeled "MENU" on the calculator keyboard.
Just ask Alexa.
I never thought I'd need real math for my job. But then I went to work on a surfacing gang. Thats the gang responsible for making sure the geometry of the tangent track is straight and level, and that the curves have the proper degree and elevation.
My foreman guessed I had no clue. He said, What's the proper superelevation for a 3 degree, 28 minute curve, on a 50 MPH track?
I'm pretty sure no man in history ever had a dumber look on his face than I did. And to this day I still have no freaking clue how to plot a curve. I have found that there's an easy way to get around my math incompetence at work. I just don't work on Surfacing gangs. Problem solved!
My calculator looks something like Ben's can't read the numbers & symbols.
Alexa isn't allowed in my house. She might know a lot of things, but she can't keep a secret to save her life...
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2020
- Messages
- 9,361
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2020
- Messages
- 9,361
Same here
The Princess was gifted with one and I exiled it from the house before it was opened.
Ben
African, or European?
