I still have my circular slide rule - circa '69, particularly useful for a newspaper sub-editor as it has a straight proportion calculation used to size up pix in the pre-digital age of steel em-rule, chinagraph pencil and cigarette ash rubbed on a glossy photo to get the old red or blue chinagraph marks off. Dem were the days, breathing pure molten lead vapor every time you took the page proofs down to the comps in the works - no wonder the survivors (51 at last count - years that is) are all bald and mostly as mad as hatters (a phrase derived fromt the fact that hatters used to use mercury to block felt into hats - no unions in those days).
My dad, an elctrical engineer and statistician had both a full length slide rule and a short 6" version - still see him back in the '50s, wreathed in smoke (cigarettes, which eventually killed him) pencil and pad, happy face illuminated by a shaded desk light, crunching numbers the old way. Sadly he never got to own a computer - just a work-surplus electro-mechanical calculating machine (+-x -.- and maybe even square roots), a steel box about the size of a coffin, plug in to mains, set the numbers on dials, crank the handle and the answer comes up. Gee, ain't science marvellous. All the nostalgic best, Fred Stevens K2FRD wrote: > I remember my father, now a long-retired engineer, moving a circular > slide rule so fast that it seemed to smoke! -- > ? -- Giles Hugo [EMAIL PROTECTED] "I don't wear ties - they restrict the blood flow." - Steve Jobs -- PCI-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PCI-PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/pci-powermacs.shtml> Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/pci-powermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Macintosh? Get free email and more at Applelinks! <http://www.applelinks.com>
