Dennis,
It was my pleasure to talk to you during the GLI championship game at Comerica Park last Saturday. Too bad Tech couldn’t pull that one out. However, it is fun to see them competitive again. Attached is a picture of my Tech slide rule that we discussed. It is mounted in a shadow box with the original leather carrying case and hangs on my office wall at work. It’s fun to quiz the new graduate engineers to see if they know what it is. Some actually do know!!
The story behind my slide rule is that is was a hand me down from my grandfather who used to work for the old US Rubber Co. in Detroit. I believe the successor company is now Uniroyal. The slide rule is an old Keuffel & Esser (K&E) and made out of wood with an engraved laminate face. On the bottom is the patent date that reads June 1900, and the date of manufacture is December 1905. My grandfather was a civilian working through US Rubber for the US Navy from 1936 to 1946. US Rubber supplied the rubber mounts on the big guns to counteract the recoil and vibration when firing. He was on 16 battleships including the Arizona, Missouri, Iowa, Alabama, Wisconsin, and Idaho. He worked on another 40 ships including the ill fated USS Indianapolis. I don’t know if the slide rule was “aboard” those ships when my grandfather was, but I like to think so.
When I started at Tech in the Fall of 1970, I don’t recall seeing a single calculator. When I graduated in 1975, I don’t recall seeing a single slide rule, the transition was that fast! I bought a Hewlett Packard HP-35 in 1973 or 1974 when they came out with the HP-45 and dropped the HP–35 price $100 to $295. I still have it.
I enjoy your column. It often touches on many great memories I have from Tech. Keep up the great work.
John G. Vine, P.E.
Thanks, John. It was some special weekend!
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Dennis,
With respect to the Slide Rule discussion, I bought my first and only slide rule, a Pickett N500-ES LOG LOG Duplex, back in high school. I got the Pickett because it was aluminum and I wanted it to last a lifetime, which it has, as I’ve still got it in my desk and occasionally bring it out to amuse myself and anyone else who might be around. I even taught our middle son how to use it when he was taking AP English back in high school and needed to do a stand-up 15 minute ‘demonstration’ for the class, preferably using something that was unusual or not readily familiar to the other students. When he explained the assignment I immediately thought of my slide rule. Of course he had never even seen one before let alone know how they worked, but was amazed when he saw that you could actually do mathematical computations using something that never needed batteries. Needless to say, his presentation was a hit as his teacher had hung onto her slide rule as well and was intrigued by the fact that he learned to use it so quickly and was able to even explain to his classmates the principles behind it.
That being said, for anyone wishing they still had a slide rule handy for when a quick problem needs to be solved, don’t despair as modern technology has come to the rescue. The link below will take you to a website where you can either use a real ‘slide rule’ on-line or you can download a copy for your PC or MAC (when you see the slide rule on the screen just use your mouse to drag the center ‘slide’ as well as the ‘cursor’ and there’s a button to flip to the other side) . There’s even links to where you can get an iPad or Android version so there will never by an excuse again for being without your slide rule: http://www.antiquark.com/sliderule/sim/index.html
Anyway, have fun.
John R. Baker, PE, BSME, ‘71
Thanks, John. Now I can finally learn how to use one!
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Thought I’d add my 2 cents worth on the slide rule. Still have mine, use it for figuring gas milage in my car. My high school physics teacher showed his class how to use one. Couple of good things about them, didn’t need batteries and they forced you to estimate the answer so you would know where the decimal point went. Students today just take the number that their calculator gives them as good even if it makes no sense at all.
Merry Christmas and keep up the good work.
Murry Stocking
EE, Class of 1972
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Hi, Dennis, the notes in the latest TechAlumniNewsLetter brought back memories. Mine are that when I entered Tech in Sep 1953, I was too poor to afford a slide rule ($25 if I remember correctly). So for my Freshman year I did all my calculations long hand. Do not know how I survived.
For Quantitative Analysis my second year, the professor Barthelow (Black Bart) Parks favored the round slide rule, so I finally bought one at $8 which I never regretted. I still have it and the little book of instructions in my desk as a curiosity.
When I graduated with my M.S. in 1960, I still used the Round Slide Rule as well as mechanical (Marchant & Monroe) calculators till about 1971, I bought one of the 1st HP 35 Calculators for about $350, later graduated to HP 65 – also $350 or $400. I wrote many programs on it. Now use Casio fx-8000 – it cost about $80. My last year, Prof. G.Cleves Byers taught me to use the Bendix G15-D computer & I did many of my graduate project calculations on it.
Ora Flaningam
B.S. 58 & M.S. 60