In high school (late 90s) we routinely had "no calculator" math tests. I brought in my dad's bamboo circular slide rule and asked if I could use it; the teacher, assuming I had no idea how it worked, said that would be fine. It certainly made the tests a lot easier.

@drewkoenen8334

Жыл бұрын

Eeeek I learned to use the slide rule in high school. Nightmares galore

@commentorsilensor3734

Жыл бұрын

Back in 80s, 2 math teachers for adults us to use calculators. Period. One gave us trigonometry tables. Of course, the math tests were always sin 35.5. We had to do interpolation. One time she gave us the values of 2 to 10 and 2 to 20. Nice, the questions are 2 to 12 n 2 to 22. It's good. We need to learn basic math operations. We don't need to learn redundant math, such as wasting time finding out 2 to 22, but 2 to 20. Back to slide rules, those two would forbid. One teacher who allowed calculators was never good in teaching. He was good in math. He earned master in math at UCLA. He was a lecture at a state university. He didn't get tenure because he didn't have PhD. He was forced to teach at high school because of job. Everyone hated him because he was not serious in teaching. Many girls liked him because you know what. Oh, he loved to brag his life. One time he brag slider backn8n his high school days. The bell rang. He said he would continue his story the next day. We said no. He can share his slider story with female students.

@ObiWanBillKenobi

Жыл бұрын

Cool story, bro. 😎

@himoffthequakeroatbox4320

Жыл бұрын

Similar time, we did them as they illustrate how logs work, and in case your calculator ran out of coal. My uncle was a retired engineer and he taught me before that. Remember the books of tables?

@johnnolang3734

Жыл бұрын

Circular slide rules are certainly better by far. I still have and use one because you can drop in on the floor more times than you can an electronic calculator. Given their rarity, it may have been the teacher who didn't have a clue what it was.

I really like these old educational films. There's no attempt to "entertain". There's no sense of a need for it. They were content simply to educate and people watching were content simply to learn. It encourages a different kind of disciplined mental focus.

@destubae3271

Жыл бұрын

Agree. It almost feels like they're trying to fight for the attention of students by flashing colored keys in front of them

@pyropulseIXXI

Жыл бұрын

This is superior. I hated when people tried to make learning entertaining. I'm learning because I enjoy it and want to learn, so injecting 'entertainment' just dilutes the learning process, ruins everything, and produces a mere illusion of understanding, as literal id**ts think "Wow, I'm enjoying learning when I otherwise wouldn't have. This means I actually learned something!" It is a method employed by charlatans in order to get 'butts in seats,' and then the goal is to make the person feel as if they learned something with no regard for actualities

@justanotherguy469

Жыл бұрын

@@pyropulseIXXI Amen Brother! Everything has to be "cool" now.

@CorvinusIratus

Жыл бұрын

My sentiments exactly. I've found the same sort of pleasure in old textbooks - the focus is on straightforward knowledge transfer without fancy graphics, unnecessary pictures, insets and all the other trappings of modern works. On top of that they are so much better written.

@neilfurby555

Жыл бұрын

Absolutely right, super lack of drama and theatre, just good well described content.

About 20 years ago we had friends over for dinner. Their daughter was a high school math scholar. She understood logarithms but had never seen a slide rule until I showed one to her. I will never forget her reaction "This is so cuuuute!" If I remember correctly, I gave it to her and she was thrilled.

I had a slide rule once, but never learned how to use it. Now I need to get one and study it. All of our greatest engineering feats were won with the slide rule. The power of logarithms!

@cannonrogmatt

4 жыл бұрын

Dead Freight West I have a old book on logarithms. While I was in engineering school in the late 60’s this was the way it was done no calculators

@SciHeartJourney

2 жыл бұрын

So you're depending upon the internet to teach you in the event it goes down for good, right? That's my plan too! I kid, but I love the "no batteries" computing power, if you know how to use it.

@johngood8107

Жыл бұрын

Same Here!

@mattsadventureswithart5764

Жыл бұрын

I have a collection of them, varying in size and number of additional scales, but my favourite is a little circular one that's about 100mm across.

@Treblaine

Жыл бұрын

Time to invest in a faraday shirt.

I know you guys are just preserving history here, but these old tutorials are pretty damn helpful

Still have mine, waiting for that EMP pulse, lol. Oh wait, I have a pacemaker. Never mind.

@icontrolthespice

4 жыл бұрын

LMAOO

@rickb1973

3 жыл бұрын

Not even going to abbreviate letters to indicate my deep and appreciative laughter......Holy heck, man....That was a good one.

@zerolatitude2923

3 жыл бұрын

Pete, I just spit up whiskey through my nose. Yeah, would be a heck of a way to go, see the transformers popping and then WHACK... hey not a bad way to get of this rock.

@samisiddiqi5411

2 жыл бұрын

Kek'd

@MyTubeSVp

2 жыл бұрын

LOL

As a chemistry undergrad and grad student in the 60s, I used my K&E slide rule every day. It's a great tool if you are OK with 2 significant figures accuracy. The first HP scientific calculators that came out in the early 70s made the slide rule obsolete; however, they cost a month's wages for a grad student at the time.

@jeffrankin967

Жыл бұрын

My first calculator was a Texas Instruments. I'm thinking it cost something like. $125 - $150

I attended University at the transition of slide rule to scientific calculator in the late 1970s. The HP35 was a pivotal event in engineering and presaged a tour de force for ALL engineers in accuracy, speed and access to mathematical results. The slide rule had its day. I was glad to have been part of its hayday and glad to have seen it pass.

@mattsadventureswithart5764

Жыл бұрын

I'm glad their day has passed, because it means I can add some very nice slide rules to my collection for very cheap

@richanthony5255

Жыл бұрын

TI SR50 was my first.

@robertromero8692

Жыл бұрын

Yes, I remember that era. The HP 35 was a source of tremendous fascination.

@drewkoenen8334

Жыл бұрын

Hmmm if I remember 8 k memory chips

@PAHighlander24

Жыл бұрын

I was in engineering school 1971-1975, when the Texas Instrument SR-10 came on the market - basic math functions with squares and square roots, and no trig functions. You could always tell who the engineering students were - slide rules in holsters from our belts. When the SR-10 first came on the market it sold for $200! Within a year it sold for less than $50, and then competition from HP with many more functions became the standard. Most of my professors banned the TI the first year, as not all students could afford them. I still have my slide rule, and show young people how it works, and they're always amazed. I tell them to watch the film Apollo 13, and see the engineers in the flight control center in 1970 grab their slide rules when the emergency happened and they needed fast calculations.

I still have several of my slide rules from high school and college, and remember how to use *most* of the scales. We had to take a 6-week course on using a slide rule when I was a freshman engineering student at Iowa State University in 1970. This was around the time the first electronic calculators were coming on the market, and a kid in my dorm loaned his out so we could check our work for the class. I remember the scene in Apollo 13 that showed the flight controllers using slide rules.

This is the content we need on day time television. These videos should be shown in school

I used a slide rule in 1975 or so in grade school. The classroom had a gigantic one on the board-six or eight feet across. Never really learned how to use it. Thank god, my new slide-rule has a usb 3 port.

I graduated high school in 1978. I had a chemistry teacher that taught/required students to use a slide rule. His rationale was that not everyone had a calculator but everyone would have a slide rule because the school would provide them.

@nickjung7394

Жыл бұрын

Got that wrong then!

@francoamerican4632

Жыл бұрын

By 1978 the public schools in my area weren't even providing pencils and paper due to budget cuts.

Fascinating piece of technology. Computers are a wonder on the level of magic that’s hard to comprehend sometimes, so it’s a real treat to see a physical object that can take on some of their functionality so eloquently.

I've been using my slide rule lately, as I lost my calculator. These things are amazing and one can get quite quick at using it to great precision

This really makes you understand why scientific notation is the way it is. It turns all numbers into a simple slide rule multiplication of two numbers between one and ten and a number of zeroes to add and subtract.

@robertromero8692

Жыл бұрын

That's not the true reason for using scientific notation. It's actually a way to express very large or very small numbers (such as Avogadro's Number or the mass of a proton) in a convenient form. All measurements have limited precision.

@gabedamien

Жыл бұрын

@@robertromero8692 even more than that, it's also a way to make very explicit whether trailing zeroes are significant (instead of placeholders). With 10,000 it isn't clear if the precision is 1*10^4, 1.0*10^4, 1.00*10^4, 1.000*10^4, or 1.0000*10^4. But with scientific notation, it is - as just illustrated in the previous sentence!

Learned to use an abacus for math class in the '60s. Learned to use a slide rule in the '70s. Learned to use a circular slide rule (a "whiz wheel") in the '80s as a navigator in the USAF (I still use a whiz wheel as a civilian pilot). Using that circular slide rule, I could often calculate a mathematical problem faster than when using an electronic calculator. I still have a slide rule and a whiz wheel.

1968, my first year in high school. I had my table books and ….. my slide rule in my bag. Oh i was a proud man. I am now retired 68 and have him stil. It is a treasure of the past.

I still use a form in aviation..the E6B flight slide rule - great little thing. Standard slide rules were bread and butter for complex problems calculations up til the mid 60's..you'd always find an engineer with a pocket protector full of pens and a slide rule on his person LOL

Got a slide rule as a birthday present in 1974. Still using it. 🙂

After watching this video I had warm memories so, I pulled out my old K&E slide rule I used in college back starting in Sept. 1962!

Ive read tons of different explanations for slide rulers and this finally clicked!

I am 11 years old and because of this video I now know how to use a slide ruler

@CraigLumpyLemke

Жыл бұрын

Good job, little math man!

When I went to college in the 60's you had to have a slide rule. I was so proud to get my first one. Had a holster to hold it in. Took a one credit course to learn how to use it. Fantastic. Of course, the electronic calculator came along not long after and that was the end of the slide rule.

@tcolon5088

Жыл бұрын

Same here, great science was done with it !!!

My first 'calculation' tool was a slide rule in Jr and Sr High school in the 60's. In 1970, my first year in college, rehargeble calculators started being sold. They were expensive so some students had them and most couldn't afford them. Since everyone couldn't afford one, we were only allowed to use slide rules for exams such as in chemistry and mathematic classes My dad had worked as Head Pasturizer for Carnation Milk Co. and had one. My mom and I got daddy a beautiful pocket glass and metal one for Fathers Day when I was 8 years old. It was in a leather pocket clip on case. I had a large plastic one in high school and when I graduated he gave me his. It's gorgeous and 52 years later ( it's 60 now) I still have and use it. I keep the slide clean and the leather well cared for. My dad has been gone 20 years now but it keeps his memory alive for me each time I use it.

Yep - still have several from college days. I actually keep one in my workshop since it can be faster for many problems than a digital calculator and the batteries never run down. My favorite is my aluminum circular slide rule that I got during Engineer Officer Basic Course at Ft Belvoir. Fit in my shirt pocket and very sturdy and definitely waterproof!

@shakeydavesr

Жыл бұрын

Hey, Ft Belvoir,, I grew up down the rd from there. Grandfather retired from there after lord knows how many years of civilian worker for Corp do Engineers.

I recall using slide rules. Got my first one as a Christmas present when I was about 14 years old from my Parents. Little did I know, at the time, what an incredible tool it was. And that they were setting up for my Sister and I expectations. Most other kids our age did not receive such presents nor expectations, I thought that was pretty profound I deduced later in life.

I've had my slide rules (both a rectangular one and a circular one) for just over 50 years and on occasion still use them for a quick calculation. My colleagues have no idea what I'm doing and seem intrigued by my capacity to work out calcuations using a device more common to enabling straight lines to be ruled with a pencil across a piece of paper.

it was after my divorce i decided to take up sailing again. since it had been 25 years since i hand walked a rolling deck, i started at the basic. in my study of life boat navigation the author strongly encouraged the use of a slide for star reductions. i had forgotten what i knew about it so this fillm proved to be amazing and to the point

@user-lv1jk9qb9t

Жыл бұрын

did you marry again?

I am of the baby boomer generation. We have seen the phenomenal changes and transition (and use) of technology from slide rules to calculators to mainframe to personal computers to smart phones. I am glad to have been part of that generation.

As an engineering student in college from 1959 through 1964 I had a slide rule hanging from my belt on campus every day! I could and did use other scales, including trig scales. Several years after graduating, HP came out with the first scientific calculator. It was a game changer. There are still some benifits to the sliderule. You don't just get an answer, you can see a range of answers.

I once owned a cylindrical slide rule. The "C" and "D" scales were wrapped helically around cylinder and were both about six feet (1.8 meters) long, . It gave one significant digit more than the usual straight or circular rules.

When I was at school, electronic calculators weren't a thing, so the slide rule was a common instrument we all used in lessons that required any sort of calculations - maths and technical drawing in my case.

Once you understand logarithms, and many slide rule users do not, you understand that log (a*b) = log(a) + log(b) Division is log(a/b) = log(a) - log(b) Thus, multiplication and division are solved on the slide rule by addition and subtraction. That's what you're doing on the slide rule: adding and subtracting LENGTHS on the two scales. You will note that the slide rule scales are marked in logarithmic distances, not linear distances. You then need to learn about exponents so that you can learn to express any number as A*10^(x), where A is a decimal number between 1 and 10, and X is the power of ten needed to complete the number. Thus, 400 = 4*10^(2). Now when you multiply 400 * 2000, you first break it down as follows 400 * 2000 = 4*10^(2) * 2*10^(3) = 4*2*10^(2+3) = 4*2*10^(5) You then use the slide rule to calculate 4*2, and when you're done, you have the answer expressed in "scientific notation." When learning exponents, you learn now to manipulate exponents, too. What stops many users in their tracks is when you have fractional exponents, such as 10^(4.27). "What the heck does that mean?!" This is why you *should* have been paying attention in high school when Mr. Smith was trying to teach you math!

@Adam-vj7dn

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for this comment, from someone who didn't pay attention in high school math

@pyropulseIXXI

Жыл бұрын

No teacher ever taught me math, because that is for idiots. If you teach yourself, the difference between a great teacher and a bad teacher becomes irrelevant; that is, a great teacher and bad teacher become equivalent, as both are irrelevant to one's learning, and both teach at a rate so slow as to be mind grating high school was lame af, because they teach you as if you are a literal 5 year old. Everything is slow, everything is graded based on homework and binder checks, and every teacher is a literal moron. Mr. Smith was less intelligent than I was when I was 10 years old School is as a massive waste of time, but I do not agree with the other type of people that think KZread videos are better. That is even dumber. I taught myself everything, even in college. College was a massive disappointment, because I thought things would finally pick up and be serious. Nope. 95% of stuff I learned was on my own, with a measly 5% being from the college courses. That means if I just learned what college taught me, I would be a massive moron lacking 95% of stuff I currently know and understand. That is why I don't get people that graduate college and think it means something, especially when they barely passed. College is the BARE MINIMUM of what one should know. A degree means "I know the bare minimum, of which a 14 year old could've taught themselves, but since society is so dumbed down, this is considered an achievement.!" My degree was in physics and mathematics (double major), I never felt like college was worth my time until I took my first graduate course as a junior

@Perktube1

Жыл бұрын

I've never had to use fractional exponents in life, but it is interesting.

@michaelball4907

Жыл бұрын

And my math teacher, who was fantastic was actually Mr Smith😊

@SeeJayPlayGames

Жыл бұрын

I understand logarithms, but I don't need a slide rule to calculate 4*2. This seems unnecessarily complex and primitive at the same time. I'm glad I didn't grow up having to use these contraptions. edit: I did have a ruler that also had a slide rule metric converter. But I never had or used a TRUE slide rule, like for actual math.

I was in my freshman year in 1976. I was in Jr. High in 1974. We had no slide rules or calculators in Jr. High, but had logarithmic scales in the back of my math book in 7th grade. Calculators were big and bulky and very expensive. Eventually we were allowed the use of calculators in math class in high school. I was always in the ‘dummy’ math class in high school. When I went to community college the year I graduated high school, I was made to take the whole series of math classes from the beginning at 8:00AM five days a week the whole time. I wound up taking two semesters of Calculus and after that I said I was done.😂🎉 I am glad I did.

used it for the last 2 years of high school. then calculators went on the market and it's been in my desk drawers since 1974.

We were taught to use slide rules in school, before calculators were a thing. I still have mine, in a leather case. Now I will get it out and learn how to use it again.

Wow. I haven't seen a slide rule instruction for nearly 60 years. I'll have to see if I can find mine from college and my Dad's slide rule. He was an expert using his. It's amazing what technological progress and inventions engineers built using these simple devices and a no. 2 lead pencil (and intelligence). Take away our computers, smart phones and the internet, and watch civilization crash.

@thomasgoodwin2648

Жыл бұрын

no. 2 pencil? Try "Manual Graphite Display Generator". 😉

@prsearls

Жыл бұрын

That’s good, Thomas. My wife and I got a laugh from your description. It sounds like something the government would say.

@peterparker9286

Жыл бұрын

Secondum. It was said that Kelly Johnson used the Michigan slide rule to develop the Black Bird.

@Perktube1

Жыл бұрын

True, but computers and phones are bringing this video to me so I can learn, like learning how to tie certain knots in paracord and bank line to make camping more fun and useful.

@prsearls

Жыл бұрын

I agree. The educational content of platforms like KZread cannot be overstated.

Brings back memories

I'm sitting here with my slide rule (a Pickett N903-T) getting the feel back for using it. People using basically just a pad of paper, a pencil and slide rule sent people to the moon.

I learnt all of this in 1972 Australian in second form high school, 14 years old, still have the slide rule and log tables. At the same time electronic calculators were comimg out. We eventually just used electronic calculators. You can be faster then a person on a calculator if you know how to use the slide rule efficiently.

@edwardliquorish8540

Жыл бұрын

Buckley Park.

NOV 1971 to MAY 1972, Navy Nuclear Power School, Bainbridge, Maryland. We used a slide rule everyday like the one shown at the opening of this video. Back then, a simple add, subtract, multiply and divide Sears calculator cost more than we made in a month. All homework quiz and exam work was done with the slide rule. We never lost a sub or melted down a power plant. Old Navy... the real Navy! Go Navy! RT sends, Puebla, México...

@PeriscopeFilm

Жыл бұрын

Thanks R.T., love this kind of comment. Please become a sub! And -- thanks for your service to our great nation.

This is the clearest explanation of a slide rule that I have ever seen!

There were hardly any explosions or kittens in this video. Good refresher. If you can do this, you can do metric.

Graduated high school in 79, and yes we learned our electronics using the slide rule. Still have mine.

I was today years old when I learned some about how to use a slide rule. Neat tool! I can see how it relies on the user to exercise understood principles of how the numbers work the same regardless of how many times each part of the problem is multiplied or divided by 10. Like you can't use this without having some math under your belt already.

I have a bunch of slide rules I picked up from antique stores, and at online auctions. I just can't see such a valuable tool disappearing into obscurity.

I always wondered how to use a slide rule, but before Google (much less KZread), there was no easy way for me to find out. Then I forgot about it. Now, some 30 - 40 years later, I have a basic understanding. Thank you.

Fantastic I am getting allot out of these training videos enjoying the older technology

I had a slide rule in the 60s and 70s. I remember taking the SAT and ACT tests with it. I wish they were still sold. I buy one.

Well today I learned that they invented the mouse cursor way before they invented the mouse. And hell, the cursor even had relevant rotating pointer animations! Awesome, thanks for sharing 👍

Thanks for this. Just got a slide rule. I can't wait to start using it more.

The slide rule went out of use by the time I got to college in ‘80 but I still owned one (long gone). The big thing when I took engineering classes were the HP scientific calculators like the 41cx.

I wish people still spoke like this.

I learned slide rule on, and still have, my father's circular slide rule which he used in the Korean war. I was in college before hand held calculator's were even an expensive toy. A TI-95 was over $800 in the mid-70s so I made do with my slide rule. We had a TI-95 on my first ship for handling some ASW calculations.

Thanks for the memories ! Have not used one in years.

Four years of Engineering school with my K+E. Still have it...

They're very deliberate in their instruction and assume that the student is able to reason.

Something about this guys voice= almost instant understanding regardless of context

Going to school, in the 70's we had to learn this & tested on it, Have our own. My 7th grade son, took his to a math test, the teacher didn't know what it was & that's a shame.

LOL!!!!! I used to be a wizard on the Versalog slide ruler back in the late 1960's in my college Electronics classes. I think I still have mine somewhere. Probably couldn't use it now. Then the HP-35 scientific calculators hit the market. I was one of the first students to get one of these in my classes. Made my tests in school a breeze. Those were the years.

Thank you very much for posting this I found a antique slide rule and couldn't find a video with the one like mine until I came across this video I wish we could go back in time before we live in a world of dumb people with smartphones we're headed towards idiocracy 😢

Found a couple of slide rules in a toolbox at work. I'm a machinist, and the shop I work in has been around since the 60., I take the sin and cos buttons on my calculator for granted.

😎 Look I have a stick! 🤨 Big Deal 😎 I made some marks on it 😳 now we can go to the moon It’s so amazing that so much has been accomplished with such a simple tool.

I find this fascinating, because I attended high school and college from 1984-1992 and was in the calculator age. My high school physics classroom had a large slide rule on the wall, which was left over from the slide rule age. It's interesting to discover how a slide rule works, but I'm glad I can use a calculator, because I am visually-challenged and would find the scales hard to see.

We used to have slide rules in high school. Mine was yellow plastic. I wish I had kept it, just as a souvenir of bygone days.

My older brother used to use the slide rule in his engineering school and later on in his employment in an aircraft factory. Now I know how it worked.

I'm not from the era of slide rules, but my Dad was. I got interested in them as a math teacher about 15 years ago. I've made some out of paper and cardstock, and I've bought a few.

Still have my K&E slide rule from Navy ET school. I loved using the slide rule.

@edwardpate6128

4 жыл бұрын

Former ET here too but by 1980 we were using calculators. When I was in NPS though some folks still using them. I still have a couple from when I was in high school.

@Paul-in-Missouri

4 жыл бұрын

@@edwardpate6128 I was a CT at GL ET school in 73. Calculators were out but VERY expensive. The slide rule I bought ( a very good K&E) was way cheaper and just as fast once you got familiar with it. It did take practice. The downside is the positional accuracy.

Nice, I still have my uncle's slide rule. I can follow this video for its use.

Thanx for the video. Last time I used a slide rule was in the mid 1970s and then calculators came along. I still have one somewhere..

Heh I found my Da's old sliderule from when he was a surveyor. It didn't take me long to figure out how to use most of the rules. But it was missing some of the more fun ones, like trig functions for some reason. My Mum also had an odd slide rule that was a disc rather than a ruler shape. It still had the clear slidey window on it and worked exactly the same. But it was actually compact enough to fit in your pocket, which must have been nice in the 70's.

amazing how simple this device really is

Well explained old video on slide rule...

And that's all you need to get to the moon.

@thomash4578

4 жыл бұрын

A rocket helps

@phantomcruizer

4 жыл бұрын

And a billion dollars 😏

@wwilcox2726

2 жыл бұрын

@@thomash4578 🤣🤣🤣

@warreneckels4945

2 жыл бұрын

Actually, computers were used as well as the slide rule. (I believe they were MODCOMPs)

@peterparker9286

Жыл бұрын

​@@thomash4578save yoir money. ALL they found was some Rigolith and Empty Royal Crown Soda Can.

I was searching through a drawer of old stuff and found an old slide rule. I haven't used it in about 40 years. But if all the calculators and computers in the world disappear, I'm prepared!

I'll have to crack the old slide rule out again. It was great fun in the days when I last used it (1972). Although if I could have watched this video in those days, I feel I would have died before I got to the solution of 2x2.... :) :)

Inherited a pocket slide rule from my father in law. It's a cheap slip of plastic and has a paint store ad on it. It was swag from the 60s or 70s and he would use it to calculate how much paint was needed, or how to mix certain proportions. It only has the basic scales on it for add/subtract multiply/divide, and you'd be lucky to get three significant digits off of it. It's a real time capsule for how everyone knew how to use them back in the day though.

Beauty of slide rule over calculator is all the alternate values are shown for various questions. Pocket calc. only gives one answer per question. Not until computers could many alternates be shown, provided someone wrote the program.

When I did my maths O'Level in 1976 we weren't allowed to use calculators, we had to show our working out by hand. In some of the questions we were instructed to work the answer out to slide rule accuracy.

I worked as an aircraft Stressman for many years .T he main problem with the slide rule was the decimal point. An easier explanation of the working of the slide rule was that it added logarithm’s to multiply and subtracted logarithm’s to divide. The spaces on the slide rule was the logarithmic numbers.

I use specialized versions of slide rules in calculating the exposure time for industrial radiography and industrial ultrasonic inspection.

Interesting video. Never had to learn to use a slide rule. You still needed to know your math, though. Btw, I think this is the first comments section I've seen where people post formulas. Very cool!

I'm probably a member of the last generation to learn how to 1) use a slide rule, 2) create engineering drawings on a drafting board, and 3) program a computer that used punch cards. Now I use a SwissMicros RPN calculator, various CAD packages, and C++. I still like slide rules, though. A few years ago I started collecting them, and I take them out periodically just to mess around with.

Sliderules are awesome and should be required in schools. Understanding their workings requires applied knowledge which is sorely missing today.

An old-school dive into the decimal system, analog version. Do you 'Muricans realize that THIS is what the metric system is based on, what is left out are the suffixes - the K (kilo) for 1000 and C (centi) for 100, m (milli) for thousands etc? Just moving the decimal point around as required. Using the slide rule very quickly became intuitive. I lived through the transition from the slide rule to ever more sophisticated digital calculators in the late 1970s. One pro of the slide rule is that it never runs out of battery power, even if you leave it in a drawer for years! It is always ready for action.

Slide rules require a fair bit of intelligence and discipline - I like it!

Caught the end of the slide rule era when a stationery store closed out its inventory for 10 cents on the dollar. Got a beautiful, decked out rule in a leather case for next to nothing.

It's amazing.

When I went to tech college in 1971, I bought a British Thornton slide-rule in a plastic case.

I remember back in high school (1979-ish) some slide rule nerds had a "race" with a couple of Japanese exchange students with a soroban. The exchange kids won something like 8 in a row!!

My father was a Master Tool and Die Maker and I use to watch him use his slide rule while working. I did simple math problems just to get the feel of using the slide rule but never to the degree of these true Masters.

In ‘70-‘72 a slide rule was required for electrical engineering classes. I had a Pickett. Moat of us became quite proficient using the slide. A few years later TI introduced the portable/battery calculator. Previously I had to use my brain. With the calculator I only had to use my fingers.

@gsdauria

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Same here I remember the fad was to get the HP hand held scientific calculator. I was working at a facility in California and was asked "what's 10% of such and such" the first thing I did was reach for my calculator. Then I realized I was to dependent on it.

Wonderful explanation

The scale appears logarithmic, love it! I wonder if it could calculate logs... don't think I would ever be in a situation to use this so great video, thanks!

@onradioactivewaves

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Probably rolls down the stairs, alone or in pairs, and over your neighbors dog.

I love how it ends with "Close enough for engineering".

The embarrassing part is how much of this I actually remember! Old geezer… To be fair though, I hardly ever used a slide tune for actual useful calculations. Scientific calculators had just become commodity products about 2-3-ish years before that. A lot of the perceived familiarity is also just because I intuitively understand logarithms and logarithmic scales, so it’s more that it’s intuitively obvious, than the I actually remember it. However, there were some tricks here I was not so familiar with, like which side of the A/B scale to use. So cool!

What an interesting old artifact. There was no mention of battery installation or even battery type. This thing has to be getting power from somewhere.

Slide rule is the great example of leveraging mathematical understanding. It and the abacus should be the only tools allowed on school tests, high-school through grad-school.

My slide rule I had in the late 70s and was a present from mum and dad I found out later was printed out of alignment on the obverse. Gutted!

Great video btw 👍