How to use a Slide Rule

Saw this recently, although I’m sure it’s been up for some time…

https://sliderulemuseum.com/SR_Course.htm

Enjoy,

-Gordon

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You can buy them here.

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There are 1000’s on ebay… Relatively cheap too.

I checked and can “refresh” my old Aristo for under £20…

-Gordon

When I was in highschool (mid-1970’s) I was one of the very few who knew how to use a slide rule - most kids were using calculators. In my physics class, we had a 6-foot demo slide rule hanging over the black board. One day we had a test, and when I took my calculator out to use it (we were allowed) the batteries were dying. I picked up my test paper, and walked up to that demo. My teacher looked over at the only other kid who knew how to use a slide rule, and saw that he was busy banging away on his calculator, so the teacher let me go. It felt good, being able to use a backup to my calculator right in front of the class and knowing that no one else could get anything from watching my work. :laughing:

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As a school anecdote - in secondary (high) school, in round about 72-79, we weren’t allowed to use electronics calculators (not really invented and then not affordable anyway) in maths, but latterly we could in engineering and physics, however I had a slide rule and was allowed to use it if I could demonstrate it’s use to a teacher - which I could.

Mostly because I think we were all taught how to use log-tables (and sin, cos, etc.) and slide rules are just a more compact version of that in a way…

But things were rapidly changing towards the end of the '70s anyway…

-Gordon

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I have a few :3

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Somewhere in my house collecting dust is a slide rule. I learned how to use it but never really needed to once calculators appeared.

Oddly enough, I was moved to buy a new circular slide rule as a result of this thread - I have a few linear ones which I already don’t use. It’s ¥3200 which isn’t too much for me (not $3200 as detailed on the confirmation, which is too much for me.) But it turns out current conditions make it unavailable for shipping to the UK. So I’ll get a second chance to go wild, or not go wild, when conditions change.

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