Entries from March 2009 ↓

Slide rules rule! Alias: manual calculators (pre-electronic calculators).

I was cleaning out my home directory and forgot I had this stuff.  It’s a collection of Java based slide rules (Java code by Eric Ross and Stefan Vorkoetter, used by permission).  I also have a decent collection of slide rules and not so long ago used my flagship rule, a Kueffel and Esser Decilon, to do two years of differential and integral calculus.

I haven’t had to use the calculus for three years, though.  I couldn’t integrate a problem today if my life depended on it.  That concerns me.  It cost a lot of time and effort to get that knowledge into my head.

I can’t be the only one to experience this.  What did you do about it?