I started taking advanced math and science classes in the ’70s at a time when hand held calculators were just becoming common. So alas I regret that I never owned or learned to use a slide rule.
I still have my old slide rule (bless its heart!) that I used in high school, for trig mostly…. I also still have, in mostly operable condition, my first computer (from 1995, a Mac Powerbook 5300c). Why, I don’t know.
I still have one of my old slide rules, and my first computer had 2, 360KB floppy (5.25") drives, and no hard drive, back in 1984. It wasn’t even fully IBM compatible.
In college I invested in a top-of-the-line slide rule. Big bucks, but, after all, I’d be using it for the rest of my life !Next spring, the first electronic calculators came out.(sigh)
My first computer was a Packard Bell with an 85 MB hard drive and 2 MB of RAM. It had a dot matrix printer and a 13 inch 16 color monitor and ran some version of DOS, not Windows. I vaguely recall the CPU was something like 16 mhz. What a powerhouse.
Comodore 64, with an external floppy drive, no hard drive and no monitor, used a small B&W TV. And the computer was in the keyboard. How cool was that!
I was in Japan back in the 1960’s and owned an American TV which didn’t work because Japanese stations broadcast on different frequencies than my TV’s channels were set to. A Japanese high school kid took the tuner out of my TV, made some calculations with his slide rule then measured and cut some copper wire and made little coils which he soldered in various places on the tuner until it looked like a frumpy housewife wearing curlers. The TV worked wonderfully well then.
I get similiar (the liar is a weak attempt at nerd humor) from The Computer Lab. Always a male with a very heavy accent, sounding like Peter Sellers doing Charlie Chan, and they never believe me when I tell them I have a Mac; one of them actually screamed at me “You lie, you lie!” God, I really hope he calls back.
TRS80 running Scripsit & VisiCalc with dual 51/4" drives and Centronics parallel port sporting 64kB memory – wow!. Started calling my girlfriend PC. Your know; dual floppies and I/O port? Ouch!
Napier’s Bones or the “Universal Guessing Stick” are more common than you think. The circular E6B “computer” is still used to torture student pilots today.
hariseldon59 over 10 years ago
I started taking advanced math and science classes in the ’70s at a time when hand held calculators were just becoming common. So alas I regret that I never owned or learned to use a slide rule.
Sisyphos over 10 years ago
I still have my old slide rule (bless its heart!) that I used in high school, for trig mostly…. I also still have, in mostly operable condition, my first computer (from 1995, a Mac Powerbook 5300c). Why, I don’t know.
jgarrott over 10 years ago
I still have one of my old slide rules, and my first computer had 2, 360KB floppy (5.25") drives, and no hard drive, back in 1984. It wasn’t even fully IBM compatible.
James_s_henry Premium Member over 10 years ago
In college I invested in a top-of-the-line slide rule. Big bucks, but, after all, I’d be using it for the rest of my life !Next spring, the first electronic calculators came out.(sigh)
rroush Premium Member over 10 years ago
My first computer was a Packard Bell with an 85 MB hard drive and 2 MB of RAM. It had a dot matrix printer and a 13 inch 16 color monitor and ran some version of DOS, not Windows. I vaguely recall the CPU was something like 16 mhz. What a powerhouse.
spamster over 10 years ago
Comodore 64, with an external floppy drive, no hard drive and no monitor, used a small B&W TV. And the computer was in the keyboard. How cool was that!
charliesommers over 10 years ago
I was in Japan back in the 1960’s and owned an American TV which didn’t work because Japanese stations broadcast on different frequencies than my TV’s channels were set to. A Japanese high school kid took the tuner out of my TV, made some calculations with his slide rule then measured and cut some copper wire and made little coils which he soldered in various places on the tuner until it looked like a frumpy housewife wearing curlers. The TV worked wonderfully well then.
michaelyukyuk over 10 years ago
I get similiar (the liar is a weak attempt at nerd humor) from The Computer Lab. Always a male with a very heavy accent, sounding like Peter Sellers doing Charlie Chan, and they never believe me when I tell them I have a Mac; one of them actually screamed at me “You lie, you lie!” God, I really hope he calls back.
ububobu over 10 years ago
TRS80 running Scripsit & VisiCalc with dual 51/4" drives and Centronics parallel port sporting 64kB memory – wow!. Started calling my girlfriend PC. Your know; dual floppies and I/O port? Ouch!
andy4set over 10 years ago
Napier’s Bones or the “Universal Guessing Stick” are more common than you think. The circular E6B “computer” is still used to torture student pilots today.