I had breakfast today with my friend John, who had found his old Pickett Model N-515-T electronics slide rule, and gave it to me. It’s imprinted with the logo of the Cleveland Institute of Electronics (where he studied electron pushing) and after 30+ years, it still works perfectly.
John knows I collect (and use) slide rules, but I like this one too much to put it in the cabinet. I cleaned it up and lubricated it with Teflon gel, so it works probably smoother than it did when it was new, and it’s going on my desk at work.
These three pieces of aluminum present some of our species’ hard-won knowledge in easily usable form. On the front is the usual clever scheme of adding and subtracting logrithms to accomplish proportional tasks.
On the back is an amazing collection of constants, conversions, and quick calculators for common electronic engineering tasks.
Pickett made an exceptionally fine slide rule. It’s a damned elegant tool, and I’m thrilled to have it. Thanks, John!
This weekend; a new Soviet Russian rule I recently acquired. Very interesting, precisely because it is not well-made. It’s a wonder the Soviets ever managed to put a man in orbit, let alone make fighter planes and tanks that worked.
DOF,
You didn’t waste any time with you new aquired treasure.
A smile on my face, just knowing someone is enjoying something another has negelected for 30 years.
Would you like a very old mechanical adding machine, I believe that item goes back some 60+ years.
How about a Commodore VIC 20 that perk your interest? [Just kidding about the VIC 20}, but that was my first purchased computer. I could clutter you desk at work with some very old office type equipment. Speaking of technoloy, they were all on the cutting edge of technology in their time.
Thanks, but I think I’ll stick to slide rules – I really like them. If I branch out into bulkier machinery, where would it stop? MrsDoF would divorce me if I started filling the house with old VAX machines and IBM 360s.
Of course I’d make an exception if you have a Curta Calculator you didn’t want anymore!
Divorce around here is spelled “O-L-D C-A-M-E-R-A-S”