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September 11th 03, 06:39 PM

wrote:
"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
...

Brian Kelly wrote:

I really hate to bust yer bubble again Alun but Smith Charts and all
the rest of the artifact nomograph "solvers" were already stale about
the time you popped out of school. Didja also have a course in slide
rule operations too? I'll bet you did, dinya?

Now ya did it Brian! I will always have a soft spot for slide rules. Of
course they are obsolete, but when I got my first slide rule, it took
math out of the abstract and put it in the real world for me.

I was in the last class at our school that was trained in their use. I
kind of miss the engineer's sixshooter on my belt! ;^)

Where d'ya put the batteries in those things anyhow?

- Mike KB3EIA -

Well said! I still have my log tables book (that's logarithms for the young
folks). Remarkably useless now-a-days.

I worked in the insurance industry and used to enjoy driving young, visiting
actuaries crazy. They would ask a question on the data presented and rather
than bang something out on my computer or programmable calculator (both of
which I used at all times EXCEPT when a newbie actuary was present), I'd
whip out my slapstick. As my eyesight become worse, so did the resulting
answers. grin

HAH! I never thought about that!

But ythey could be remarkably fast, even if you did lose the numbers
far to the right of th decimal point.