The Slide Rule Ruled

I've caught a bug, not swine flu, but "new computer flu". Its all due to my son who has convinced me that I should avail myself of the latest computer technology. Searching for what is out there in the way computers for an old codger has unleashed memories of the days when slide rules ruled ( those white sticks full of tiny numbers and a glass cursor that spewed out results of simple and complex formulas - Wikipedia has a good history of the slide rule as well as the HP Museum).

The first thing I learned when I arrived on campus was that engineering students were required to have a slip sticks. A slip stick? It sounded obscene! What had gone wrong with my education, I had never heard of one. An upper classman patiently explained that a slip stick was a slide rule which was used to rapidly make all kinds of scientific calculations. As he hit my head with the slip stick , he made it clear that without one I’d never get through the first semester.

Off to the college book store to purchase my slip stick. The slip stick of choice was a twelve inch log-log K&E. Some of the wealthier students opted for the twenty-two inch model. Compared to the twelve inch slide rule , it was like owning an I-Mac laptop. The Dell version would have to do.

Owning a slide rule and making it slip out the correct answer are two different things. After panicking at the thought that I would have to admit that the damn thing was completely foreign to me I settled down. To my relief , freshmen were offered a seminar on how to use a slide rule. The seminar was packed. I wasn’t the only jerk on campus.

Upon reflection, learning to use a slide rule was much easier than mastering Windows and spreadsheets but not nearly the fun.

Picking out an engineering student on campus was easy. Anyone toting a twelve inch long rectangular black case from their belt was an engineer-in-the-making. And tote it we did- it was a badge of honor ( liberal arts students considered it a badge of “nerdism”).

It wasn’t long before I discovered that getting through an  exam was impossible without a slide rule. How well you did on the exam was a direct product of how well you used a slip stick. During an exam you could almost smell wood burning as slip sticks were put through their paces.

Its amazing that there was so much technological progress before the age of the computer. I’m sure the inventors of the transistor ,which laid the foundation for the computer, had a slip stick on their desk as they waded through solid state physics.

I ‘m going to take another loving look of my slide rule, put it back in its black case and then get about the business of selecting another computer. I’ll probably do as I did many years ago when selecting a slide rule and go for the twelve inch model rather than the twenty-two inch model. Wish I could hang it from my belt. My God, I can - an I-Phone with all the bells and whistles would be great! They say Twitter is becoming more popular than blogging. On the other hand, why not a nice lap top in a black bag which I could sling over my shoulder and look hip, cool but definitely not nerdy.