Doug Pensinger wrote:
>
> Dan Minette wrote:
>
> >
> >OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest
> >computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned
> >before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-)
> >
> Do you remember the math machines - kind of mechanical computers - that
> they used to have. If I recall correctly, you would type in a number
> pull a lever, type in an operation and another number and pull the lever
> and it would calculate the answer. My Dad used to take me to work with
> him on weekends and sit me down on those things (I was ~ 11) and we
> played on them for hours. Obviously this was a few years before the
> hand heald calculator was introduced.
>
> How many here ever used a slide rule?
Define "use". Chewing on it for teething purposes count? :) If so, I
was using one before I was 18 months old, maybe even before I was a year
old.
I *have* used the two that I inherited from my father, on occasions
where it was just easier to whip it out and use it for an approximation
rather than use a calculator and get a degree of precision that I really
didn't need. (And yes, one of them has toothmarks on it.)
Julia
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