Slide Rules - whatever happened to them?

[Ron Ron Ron]

Clearing out some of my old stuff during the so called "lockdown", I came across a couple of my old school slide rules.

 

I've always known they were there, but in previous sort outs, I've just put them away again, thinking I might pass them on to someone who might want them, find them useful or would like to collect them as a curiosity.

I just couldn't chuck them in the bin, as they're in very good nick, complete with their protective vinyl cases.

 

I've long lost the knowledge of how they work, but vaguely remember using log tables to perform calculations in maths lessons.

I haven't a clue what all that was about though, after all it was about 50 years ago.

I'm not sure I did at the time either, even though I got an A.

 

Anyway, I'm wondering if anybody collects these items, or if there's any use for them these days?

Probably not.

 

Mrs Ron would have them in the Wheely Bin, before you can say Jack Robinson.

 

 

.

[beast66606]

I can still just about remember how to use them for simple maths, very powerful things in their day. I seem to recall Thornton ? were the bees knees in the early 1970s. One thing it did teach me which has served me well was to estimate the expected answer - so you know if you read 678 it was 67.8 rather than 0.678 - I still do "ballpark" maths automatically when I need to calculate things, and I taught the kids to do the same.

[BigMal]

Still have my old school slide rule. Might just need it sometime in the future if the digital world implodes. Like beast, I think I can still remember how to use it. Went through school and university all before the days of "modern" technology - the four function pocket calculator!

[tigerburnie]

I had one at college, then after I qualified I never ever used it again, one of those teaching implements replaced by a calculator I guess.

[Bernard Lamb]

I used the Otis King cylinder type well into the 1980s.

There seems to be a market for them going by Ebay.

Bernard

[KeithMacdonald]

Still got a British Thornton AD050 in its case.

http://www.sliderules.info/collection/10inch/000/1003-thornton-ad050ll.htm

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

47 minutes ago, BigMal said:

Still have my old school slide rule. Might just need it sometime in the future if the digital world implodes. Like beast, I think I can still remember how to use it. Went through school and university all before the days of "modern" technology - the four function pocket calculator!

 

Just to be extra-safe, we better download the instructions before the digital world implodes.

 

http://www.sliderules.info/collection/inst-thornton.htm

 

I (for one) might struggle to remember how to use a slide rule.

[APOLLO]

Did my ONC Mechanical Engineering & HNC Gas Engineering with my 30 bob Faber Castell slide rule. Couldn't afford a posh British Thornton, they were four quid !!!!

 

I still have it in its grey plastic case - it still works too !!!!

 

 

 

I remember Riversdale College in Liverpool (ONC) had a couple of brand new electronic calculators - we could look at them but not touch them - far too expensive back then !!

 

Worst thing I ever had to use were "Steam Tables" - work of the devil !!!!!!

 

 

Happy days (most of them).

 

Brit15

[APOLLO]

Similar to the slide rule was the Mears calculator. Standard North Western Gas Board issue to engineers. Used to calculate pipe sizes mainly. I still have mine. It was quite easy to use, though we were told to use it and go "the next pipe dia up" to cater for future load increases !!!

 

 

The firm Mears made a range of calculators for use in various industries.

 

Brit15

[Michael Hodgson]

 

1 hour ago, beast66606 said:

I can still just about remember how to use them for simple maths, very powerful things in their day. I seem to recall Thornton ? were the bees knees in the early 1970s. One thing it did teach me which has served me well was to estimate the expected answer - so you know if you read 678 it was 67.8 rather than 0.678 - I still do "ballpark" maths automatically when I need to calculate things, and I taught the kids to do the same.

 

I worked as a bank cashier for a couple of years and when we bought/sold foreign currency we were supposed to get a colleague to check our calculations.  The top cashier only ever bothered to do a ballpark check - and that the rate looked right, and yeah they look like  french francs or whatever.  Probably more chance of mis-identifying the notes or using a rate for the wrong currency. 

 

I never used slide rules, didn't understand them.  Log tables were more accurate, but most engineers used slide rules and got the answer a lot faster than looking up tables.  Can't see why anybody would need logarithms any more either.

[2750Papyrus]

My wife has always been fascinated that I can do ROM sums in my head, as noted above, a necessity when using a slide rule.

 

I still have my Thornton somewhere.  My Dad used to have a circular instrument with a chromed body and glass face, working on the same principle as a linear slide rule.  Nowadays it would be collectable, but  sadly had gone missing when we cleared his house.

[88C]

Very useful in their day. When I was teaching we had one which must have been about 4’ long which we used as an aid. I also had one of the circular type which was very useful when converting marks to percentages. Mine must be around somewhere, perhaps it will turn up when eventually we get round to clearing the loft. I doubt I’ll be able to remember how to use it!

 

One abiding memory I have of the futuristic Blake’s Seven is an episode with some of the crew in the background using slide rules.
 

Brian

[dhjgreen]

Known as guessing sticks and wishing wheels at the time.

[chris p bacon]

I think I might have posted this before, apologies if so.

 

I was taught to use one but can't for the life of me remember how to use it. I do have my Fathers slide rule that he used for his whole working life (57 Years) He was captured in 1941 and sent to Germany as a PoW (as a merchantman he was a captive) while there they had a rough time in the camps so the senior engineers held lessons in various subjects for the junior engineers. Dad took as many classes as possible to use is time up but really needed a slide rule. He wrote to Grandmother asking if she could send one to him which she did.

Of the many parcels and letters she sent only a few got through, most didn't and those that did had the clothing or food taken out before reaching Germany. The parcel with the slide rule was treated very differently, when it arrived the Germans made a big presentation of it to Dad in front of lots of the other camp internees and read out part of the letter from Grandmother, in it she had written that she had sent him the slide rule as requested and had sought out and purchased the best she could.... the maker was F W Faber-Castell....German....

When he returned he had just 3 things, a plate, a spoon and the slide rule.As can be seen he used the world supply of sellotape on it during its life..

 

[rocor]

2 hours ago, BigMal said:

Still have my old school slide rule. Might just need it sometime in the future if the digital world implodes. Like beast, I think I can still remember how to use it. Went through school and university all before the days of "modern" technology - the four function pocket calculator!

 

I also was at school prior to the age of electronic calculators, we did not have slide rules though, or even log tables come to think of it. At primary school however, there was an abacus at the front of the classroom, which we could touch on pain of  heavily slapped legs. Education just isn't what it used be.

[EddieB]

Came up a few months ago, through watching an animé film based on the life of an aircraft engineer (how the designer of the planes used by kamikaze pilots could be so honoured is another story altogether).  Use of a slide rule featured quite strongly.

 

Still, it gave me opportunity to dig out my British Thornton one (expensive yes, but I couldn't stretch to a double sided model).  Useful to show my daughters how it worked, but also to demonstrate how logarithms work (log scales, log tables and multiplication by addition of powers of ten).  Sadly, none of that is likely to be of any use in a world of calculators on mobile phones, among a generation to whom most forms of mental arithmetic appear to have little application beyond a classroom.

 

 

[Ron Ron Ron]

32 minutes ago, rocor said:

 

I also was at school prior to the age of electronic calculators, we did not have slide rules though, or even log tables come to think of it. At primary school however, there was an abacus at the front of the classroom, which we could touch on pain of  heavily slapped legs. Education just isn't what it used be.

 

Abacus?

Luxury.

Thou duzzen't know thuz born.

 

Our teacher used to strap us t'chair wi barbed wire....make us chew a bar of carbolic soap ...and then bash uz round ed if we cud-n't recite 59 time tables.......backwards.

If we got it right, we got 12 strokes of the cane as a reward.

Aye. them were the days.

Kid's today don't know thez born !

 

 

 

 

.

[2750Papyrus]

1 hour ago, chris p bacon said:

I think I might have posted this before, apologies if so.

 

I was taught to use one but can't for the life of me remember how to use it. I do have my Fathers slide rule that he used for his whole working life (57 Years) He was captured in 1941 and sent to Germany as a PoW (as a merchantman he was a captive) while there they had a rough time in the camps so the senior engineers held lessons in various subjects for the junior engineers. Dad took as many classes as possible to use is time up but really needed a slide rule. He wrote to Grandmother asking if she could send one to him which she did.

Of the many parcels and letters she sent only a few got through, most didn't and those that did had the clothing or food taken out before reaching Germany. The parcel with the slide rule was treated very differently, when it arrived the Germans made a big presentation of it to Dad in front of lots of the other camp internees and read out part of the letter from Grandmother, in it she had written that she had sent him the slide rule as requested and had sought out and purchased the best she could.... the maker was F W Faber-Castell....German....

When he returned he had just 3 things, a plate, a spoon and the slide rule.As can be seen he used the world supply of sellotape on it during its life..

 

The next time Antiques Roadshow is in the area, you should take it along.  It won't be worth much, but the story deserves a wider audience.

[tigerburnie]

No idea what make mine was, but that info states 1967 for the Thornton one, I began my apprenticeship in '65, so it won't have been one of those then.

[Ron Ron Ron]

3 hours ago, Bernard Lamb said:

.....There seems to be a market for them going by Ebay.

 

Well, there are lots of Slide Rules on eBay, but very few appear to have offers on them.

 

There are various sorts of items listed on there, with large quantities for sale, but those items don't seem to attract any interest never mind bids.

 

I put my slide rules on eBay yesterday, at a fairly modest price compared with others currently listed on there; and so far I've had 10 views and no bids.

 

 

.

[geoffers]

Think it was a Thornton but in my meteorological days we used one constantly to work out dew points and vapour pressures from observed dry bulb and wet bulb temperatures. Even had a facility for ice bulb calculations too. In my last ten years all this was replaced by a digital Semi Automatic Meteorological Observing System (SAMOS) which worked it out for you. Metmen/women of today don't know what they are missing. Wonder if I still have one?

[Steamport Southport]

Ah! But can you do this with one? 

 

 

[62613]

1 hour ago, EddieB said:

Came up a few months ago, through watching an animé film based on the life of an aircraft engineer (how the designer of the planes used by kamikaze pilots could be so honoured is another story altogether).  Use of a slide rule featured quite strongly.

 

Still, it gave me opportunity to dig out my British Thornton one (expensive yes, but I couldn't stretch to a double sided model).  Useful to show my daughters how it worked, but also to demonstrate how logarithms work (log scales, log tables and multiplication by addition of powers of ten).  Sadly, none of that is likely to be of any use in a world of calculators on mobile phones, among a generation to whom most forms of mental arithmetic appear to have little application beyond a classroom.

 

 

O/T but was it "The Wind Rises"?

[62613]

3 minutes ago, 62613 said:

 

O/T, but was it "The Wind Rises"? Miyazake's last film for Studio Ghibli; the pacifist sentiments got him into a lot of trouble with certain elements in Japanese society. A fine ending to a brilliant career.

 

[EddieB]

12 minutes ago, 62613 said:

O/T, but was it "The Wind Rises"? Miyazake's last film for Studio Ghibli; the pacifist sentiments got him into a lot of trouble with certain elements in Japanese society. A fine ending to a brilliant career.

 

Yes, that's the one.  Superb artwork and well-crafted storyline, which included the tragedy of the Tokyo earthquake.  Just a shame that it puts a gloss on what became a very dark series of events.