31–40 of 48 posts
I never got to use a slider ruler but I got a couple of gems from my older coworkers that were catalogue slide ruler (not sure what its called). There was one that you pulled a couple sleeves and it gave you the clearance hole for the corresponding screw. It's kinda crazy how functional these manual lookup tables were and designing it must of been a form of art.
I love slide rules. The amount of functionality stuffed into such a simple device is beautiful. Also, turning multiplication/division into addition/subtraction with logarithmic scales felt like a genius level hack when I first learned about it, like the fast inverse square. On a mildly related note, does anyone know if it's possible to construct a logarithmic scale from simple tools? A demonstration I've always wante…
You can plot the lines using matplotlib, then print it and stick it on a piece of wood. There are also slide rule PDFs online.
I love slide rules. The amount of functionality stuffed into such a simple device is beautiful. Also, turning multiplication/division into addition/subtraction with logarithmic scales felt like a genius level hack when I first learned about it, like the fast inverse square. On a mildly related note, does anyone know if it's possible to construct a logarithmic scale from simple tools? A demonstration I've always wante…
I love slide rules. The amount of functionality stuffed into such a simple device is beautiful. Also, turning multiplication/division into addition/subtraction with logarithmic scales felt like a genius level hack when I first learned about it, like the fast inverse square. On a mildly related note, does anyone know if it's possible to construct a logarithmic scale from simple tools? A demonstration I've always wante…
Indeed the whole notion of logarithms was developed and introduced by Napier to simplify calculations!
Another neat old-school calculator is the mechanical Curta: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta
Most of them are pretty cheap on Ebay, <$200 not including shipping. The Addiators in particular are simple, cheap and small.
I never got to use a slider ruler but I got a couple of gems from my older coworkers that were catalogue slide ruler (not sure what its called). There was one that you pulled a couple sleeves and it gave you the clearance hole for the corresponding screw. It's kinda crazy how functional these manual lookup tables were and designing it must of been a form of art.
Also, Nomograms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomogram
I found it on the scrap pile when an old building on my university was being renovated. It didn't have a university inventory serial number on it, so they weren't allowed to surplus it and had to toss it. I was in utter shock that it was going to get tossed, so took it.
The building it was in was built in 1913, originally to hold the School of Mines for Oregon State University, so I imagine it used to belong to a professor or researcher there when the School was quite new.
I've never actually used it, but perhaps some day can find a the original manual to learn how.
If you 'Unwrap' a Thacher's it ends up being the equivalent of a regular slide rule that's 59 feet / 18 meters long.
Here's one in a collection with a picture and some background...
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nma...
At the other end of the spectrum: I bought one of these Russian KL-1 pocket-watch slide rules: https://www.sliderulemuseum.com/Manuals/KL-1_RussianCircular... (I now need reading glasses to use it- so annoying).
It would help if there was something to show the scale of the slide rule in the pictures.
Yes. It's about two feet wide. Coincidentally, there's one for sale on eBay right now.