Everything went well then. I graduated without computers help - on computers. Today it's vice versa. Today every new os version - just new clicks or taps, for poor little John to make it with less clicks, and this is always presented as biig advance in computer field. Yes, I mean Microsoft and Apple and .... Everything screwed up for the sake of profit for the shareholders. Every new tech carries the burden of shareholders just thinking of profit.
Calculation before we went digital [pdf]
21–29 of 29 posts
Re: Calculation before we went digital [pdf]
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Save the $10 and look at the selection of online virtual slide rules at https://www.sliderules.org/ .
This is an amazing resource, but it just doesn't beat the feel or utility of having a real slide rule in your hands. Part of the appeal is the ability to rapidly compute at the expense of precision (it's the fundamental tradeoff of the slide rule, though larger slide rules and careful use try to minimize it), but the emulated versions encourage precision over speed by design.
I've bought a couple of slide rules and feel like I still haven't quite gotten it:
- a ThinkGeek one which had an offputting amount of stiction despite not-bad reviews
- a used one which was better, but such that I guess I still need to learn how to clean or lubricate it to the standard these things must've been meant for.
Re: Calculation before we went digital [pdf]
#23For those who wish to learn more about the slide rule, I recommend Asimov's (yes, that Asimov) book, "An Easy Introduction to the Slide Rule." I was lucky to pick up a physical copy as a young man, but it appears it's available as a PDF online. That, plus any of the $10 vintage slide rules on eBay, opens a while new world of fun. I still use slide rules fairly regularly. I find that I gain better understanding of the…
Save the $10 and look at the selection of online virtual slide rules at https://www.sliderules.org/ .
Nothing is moving at all, no matter where I tap or drag it? I'm on mobile Firefox.
Re: Calculation before we went digital [pdf]
#24> The slide rules, also known colloquially as “slip sticks”, were the only calculators available before the electronic age, traveled with the Apollo 11 on the Moon and, essentials on board aircraft for the dead reckoning, are still required as a means of emergency. This sentence is funny for several reasons, not least of which is it comes after a long list of pre-electronics calculators. The mention of dead reckoning…
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Re: Calculation before we went digital [pdf]
#25I still have the Odhner calculator, as seen on page 19 of that PDF, that my grandfather was still using at his SME in the eighties (he owned a little SME making tailor-made clothes)! I think that at some point in the fifties he bought a stock of desks, calculators, typewriters, etc., used, from another company. And then he kept using these old machines for decades. As a teenager I'd go help for a few bucks: I'd use t…
Its funny how "CC:" has survived into the digital age. I wonder how many 20-somethings or younger realize what it really means?!
Hell I'm 35 and most of what I saw growing up were "carbonless" copy forms (the yellow and pink ones). Using actual carbon paper for copies seems to have started falling out of common use in the 80's if not earlier
Re: Calculation before we went digital [pdf]
#26Father worked as a calculator. Room full of guys summing columns in their heads. When mechanical calculators came out they ran them in parallel with the human calculators.
Re: Calculation before we went digital [pdf]
#27I'm currently reading Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics, which covers the development of analogue computers from 1914 to 1945. It's really interesting to see the development of physical machines which were used to support complex real-time calculations (e.g. from gunfire control on battleships to early radar-driven AA guns) and how these transitioned to electronic (but not yet digital) solutions.
What's also interesting is that the development of these machines led to the first published use of terms such as 'systems integration' and the recognition that the feedback control aspects of a system were just as important as the optics, mechanics, etc. Also how cross-domain fertilization occurred, e.g. the realisation that servo motors were in a sense amplifiers, and thus that maths developed to support communications systems could be applied almost directly to physical control systems.
Re: Calculation before we went digital [pdf]
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an amazing resource, but it just doesn't beat the feel or utility of having a real slide rule in your hands. Part of the appeal is the ability to rapidly compute at the expense of precision (it's the fundamental tradeoff of the slide rule, though larger slide rules and careful use try to minimize it), but the emulated versions encourage precision over speed by design.
I've bought a couple of slide rules and feel like I still haven't quite gotten it: - a ThinkGeek one which had an offputting amount of stiction despite not-bad reviews - a used one which was better, but such that I guess I still need to learn how to clean or lubricate it to the standard these things must've been meant for.
I clean and lubricate my metal and plastic slide rules occasionally. A good wipe down and petroleum jelly is sufficient. Bamboo slide rules seem to be more slippery, so I just keep them clean.
You want it to move freely and without grit, but not so freely that it has a chance of slipping. When necessary, adjustment by loosening the top and bottom scales can be accomplished by using the cursor to fix alignment.
Re: Calculation before we went digital [pdf]
#29I still have the Odhner calculator, as seen on page 19 of that PDF, that my grandfather was still using at his SME in the eighties (he owned a little SME making tailor-made clothes)! I think that at some point in the fifties he bought a stock of desks, calculators, typewriters, etc., used, from another company. And then he kept using these old machines for decades. As a teenager I'd go help for a few bucks: I'd use t…
>literally putting two or three sheets of paper separated by a carbon sheet I had to chuckle at your use of "literally", as I too (and probably many others here) would never imagine that there was a figurative way to do this. I should add, carbon paper is not literally made out of carbon. Separately, I noticed the image of the Playboy Magazine cover used in the article. It was customary for them to always include the…
Why would use of literally imply there’s a figurative way to do it? Literally has been used for emphasis and even sometimes used (correctly) to mean figuratively, for literally hundreds of years. Language is fluid and fun, and words have multiple meanings. Always have, always will. Don’t fight it, enjoy it.