My original
Pickett & Eckel, Inc. slide rule. Purchased circa 1950.
This slide rule had trig functions. There were no hand calculators
at the time. My first PC was
an Olivetti P602 portable electronic calculator
utilizing a wire loop memory. I spent so much time on it, that
my wife thought she had lost me, and called it "Miss Olivetti"!
It literally
took weeks to pound out the first simulations of the gravitational force,
which were wrong! That was about 1974.
Note the yellow
color of the Pickett & Eckel slide rule, designed to ease eyestrain.
This slide rule was one of the first to have an aluminum body, bamboo being
the traditional construction material. True nurds, such as myself,
proudly carried it in a leather case on their way to class.
SLIDE
RULES
AND LAPTOPS