[TheForge] Re: Slide rules (was: Excessive scaling?)

[rsmuck]

Thanks Mike, I enjoyed reading about them!
Rowland of Roseburg, OR 97470
I love The Science Channel
My Hero's are Burt Rutan & Paul McCready
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike" <mspencer at tallships.ca>
To: <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2006 12:06 PM
Subject: [TheForge] Re: Slide rules (was: Excessive scaling?)


> 
>> Do any of you remember the rotary calculators, I knew some surveyors
>> who used them. They were also called coffee grinders, were basically
>> a round cyl 1 1/2 or 2" in diameter about 3" long you dialed in a
>> number on the case then turned a handle on the end the number of
>> times that you needed to multiply.
> 
> That wouls be the Curta, right?  Never had one but I was always
> intrigued by the ads in Scientific American.  They're now hot
> collectibles.  See http://www.curta.org/
> 
> And you might want to read William Gibson's _Pattern Recognition_, in
> which a Curta is the key to figuring out that... well, you have to
> read the book. ;-)
> 
> Somewhere I have.. had?... a nice K&E sliderule in a belt holster but
> I haven't been able to find it for years.  I keep hoping it'll turn
> up.  I got it out of the trunk of a junked car that came into the
> place I was working in 1968.  I was the only guy in the shop that knew
> how to use it so I got it.  The reliable but tacky-looking plastic
> sliderule that got me through school has vanished, too.  Grump.
> 
> 
> 
> - Mike
> 
> -- 
> Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
>                                                           /V\ 
> mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
> http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^
> _______________________________________________
> Manage membership or unsubscribe at:
> http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/theforge
> theforge mail list group photo site is
> http://www.photoaccess.com
> Login:  blacksmithblacksmith at hotmail.com
> password:  anvil
> ___________
> 
>