When I first became involved in electronics, slide rules were the one
absolutely necessary calculation tool owned by every engineer and
technician. They were simple, uncomplicated, easy to use (after some
period of rather tedious practice), and delightfully low tech. They
were the calculation tool-of-choice for over three centuries.

Then, as the giant asteroid was to dinosaurs, overnight the $9.95
pocket calculator killed the slide rule. Despite it's ubiquity and
utter simplicity the mighty slide rule went extinct in less than a
decade! Perhaps somewhere, in a backward company in a backward country
without sand from which to make silicon chips, a group of stalwart
engineers still treasure their Pickett or K+E slipsticks, and still
require a practical examination, down to the third significant digit,
of an engineers proficiency, and whether they actually could explain
the difference between the CIF and DIF scales.

Perhaps some amateur mathematicians still are proficient on slide rules
(after all, they haven't been outlawed!). I bet they even hold speed and
accuracy contests at a nostalgic "Slippers" convention each spring in
Akron, Ohio. Led by the scratchy but firm voices of their oldest club
members, Vince Bentupcursor and Larry Elscale, they close each
convention by quoting the 1940's fight song of that bastion of
wood-assisted math, Cal Tech:

"E-to-the-x du dx, E-to-the-x dx,
Cotan secant tangent sine,
three point one four one five nine.
Square root, cube root, QED
Slipstick, slide rule, Hooray! CT!"

The next SLIPS newsletter duly reports the resolution of the IEEE BoD to
gain legislation to include slide-rule competency testing as a requisite
to all engineering degrees, except those seeking 2-year Stickless
Technician degrees. Regular Technicians will require 5CPM (Calculation
Per Minute) exams, BSEE will require 13CPM, and MSEE will require a
20CPM exam.

On another front, when I first became involved in amateur radio, Morse
code was the one absolutely necessary communications mode used by every
ham. It was simple, uncomplicated, easy to use (after some period of
rather tedious practice) and delightfully low tech. It was the amateur
communication mode-of-choice for over three generations.

Then, as the giant asteroid was to dinosaurs, overnight..........

73, de Hans, K0HB