I have one that I use from time to time.

It was my father's. A K&E.

I have to manual for it too.

I suppose I could figure it out again. Mine is in a drawer at my Mom's house.

Im 35 and never saw one.

What is that ruler with the rolling cylinder on the back called.

I have a K&E I acquired a long time ago. I've never really needed to use one due to my age, but I've always been somewhat of a Luddite. I have a vague understanding of how to use it. There is certainly an art to using one well.

We had them back in the day to figure weight & balance on C-130's. Loadmasters used them. Hell, slide-rule class was two days at Little Rock AFB.

My Dad was an engineer and taught me how to use one. That was 60 years ago, doubt I'd be able to pick one up and use it.

My dad tried to teach me how to use his when I was in high school but I never picked it up.

Years ago I could handle one, but now? No way.

Needed one for a class decades ago. I would be lost today. The one thing I do remember is I wish I had a better one, they were so cool.

quote:

Originally posted by Ripley:
...they were so cool.

Yes!

Not me. I haven't a clue. My brother, an engineering student in the early 1970s would have used one. He might vaguely remember. Circa 1974 or '75, somewhere in there, he bought one of the first scientific pocket calculators from HP. It was something like $400 then. Now one with the same functions is probably a tenth of that.

I used to know how to use one but it has been so long that all I can do now on one is simple multiplication.

I had a K&E.

I still have mine from 1974. That fall (my Freshman year) in the first physics 101 exam, about 2/3 of the students were using slide rules.

In the second exam less than half.

In the third exam very few. Somewhere in there I got my HP35 (which I also still have).

I also have my grandfather's slide rule. He was Class of '18 at Purdue.

We were taught how to use one in HS.
My father was a civil engineer and he had shown me and my brother how to use one as well.
Also, when I took up flying, I learned to use an E6B which is a type of slide rule.

With a little practice, I am sure it would come back to me.

My dad taught me to use his slide rule when I was in the 8th or 9th grade, and I got to be pretty good with it, but I got my first calculator (add, subtract, multiply, and divide only) a couple of years later and never picked up the slide rule again.

I had to buy a new Texas Instruments calculator every year after that until buying an HP11C calculator in the fall of 1983. I still use it at work every day.

We had to learn how to do basic math on a slide rule in college. I think I've still got mine in a box someplace, but absolutely no idea how to use it anymore.

I also learned to use on in HS. I still have mine with all my drafting supplies. I kind of remember how to use it. Calculator is easier.

I do, and I have three around here plus a large circular slide rule and a 6" pocket SR.

About 1980 some the guys in my engineering group took a Pickett rule from my disk and put it in a shadow box with a brass plate; "To everything there is a season". It is now on the wall in my office.

Until the advent of the HP 35 and SR 10 in the early 70s the only hand held device capable of for example square and cube roots was the slide rule.
When I was in collage in the 50's every engineering student had a "slip stick" in a belt holster.

I had a college class on sliderule. Still have my pocket K&E and a full size SIC.