(j3.2006) Retro cool to go with your Fortran compiler

[Jerry Wagener]

I too still have my slide rule, a Pickett purchased in 1955, complete with leather case and belt loop  (old-timers will remember the brand, and I see that the thinkgeek reference includes a link to the Pickett slide rule manual). In addition to the usual dual-base log log scales it has square roots, cube roots, sine, tangent (and of course arc sine and arc tangent), and several more scales. A precision instrument (mechanically) but, alas, one can compute with it to only about two significant figures (in some cases you can interpolate close to three significant figures) - guess that was good enough for much early engineering work. 

    -Jerry

On Dec 15, 2010, at 4:42 AM, Lawrie Schonfelder wrote:

> I still have my 1950s slide rule. It was much used when I was an undergrad but then I found first a
> marchant desk calculator and then a computer called CIRAC (32 instructions, 16 16bit Williams tube
> registers, 1024 16bit word mercury delay line memory, 2millisecond cycle time) and the slide rule
> passed into the back of the cupboard. I actually solved a PDE on the computer before moving on to a
> IBM 1620 with Fortran. Nostalgia!
> 
> --
> Lawrie Schonfelder
> Wirral, UK
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: j3-bounces at j3-fortran.org [mailto:j3-bounces at j3-fortran.org]On
>> Behalf Of Van Snyder
>> Sent: 14 December 2010 23:54
>> Subject: (j3.2006) Retro cool to go with your Fortran compiler
>> 
>> 
>> Retro cool to go with your Fortran compiler.
>> 
>> http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/tools/be12/
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> J3 mailing list
>> J3 at j3-fortran.org
>> http://j3-fortran.org/mailman/listinfo/j3
>> 
>> No virus found in this incoming message.
>> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
>> Version: 9.0.872 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/3315 - Release Date: 12/14/10 07:34:00
>> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> J3 mailing list
> J3 at j3-fortran.org
> http://j3-fortran.org/mailman/listinfo/j3