[TheForge] OT slide rules

[Andrew Vida]

I suppose it depends on the task at hand.  We did, after all, put men on 
the moon by engineering craft with the slide rule.  This is not to take 
anything away from the abacus, a righteous calculating machine in its 
own right.

schade at acegroup.cc wrote:
> 
> this just came up on another list I read. slide rules and gozinta.........
> 
> Bob
> ___________
> 
> 
> 
> 
> My two cents on slide rules: They are great for APPROXIMATE answers to
> a few decimal places. BUT, for real accuracy, especially in commercial
> and trade applications you really need an abacus. They have many, many
> more significant digits of accuracy than a slide rule. And when
> trading pounds of corn for bags of nails you don't really need square
> roots and logarithms just the basic four: plus, minus, times and gozinta.
> 
> --gary where the Willamette meets the McKenzie in Orygun, US of A.