RE: pinhole slide rules?

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From: Coral Clark (coralc@raft.net)
Date: Thu Jan 06 2005 - 09:14:08 PST 

From: "Coral Clark" <coralc@raft.net>
Subject: RE: pinhole slide rules?
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 09:14:08 -0800
Message-ID: <6160E3BC7B503E49A3B2CB3DC2EEB9FD0156EB@mailsrv1.raftnet.net>

I, personally, think that old technologies are fascinating and have a place
in the classroom, if nothing else for the connection to human history of
technology.
I know that not everyone agrees with me, but I feel slide rules can be
valuable tools that provide estimation practice. My chemistry teacher in
high school took a lot of flack for making his students in the 80's use
slide rules when calculators were readily available, but I actually
appreciated the knowledge. They are also quite valuable, literally, as many
people these days collect them.

Here are a few links that give some history and show how to use them:

http://www.sliderule.ca/intro.htm
http://www.hpmuseum.org/sliderul.htm
http://www.ualr.edu/~lasmoller/napier.html

I have developed a simplified version of a slide rule that uses craft sticks
with log templates. I can send the file to anyone who would like it (it is
not yet on the RAFT website). We also have a craft stick version of Napier's
Bones (an early lattice multiplication tool) that I can also send to anyone
who is interested. For more information on Napier's Bones, go to:

 http://www.cee.hw.ac.uk/~greg/calculators/napier/great.html

Cheers!

-Coral

I inherited a class set of slide rules and would like to know how to
use them. Has anyone ever considered giving a Saturday workshop on old
technologies that are cheaper, more environmentally friendly and
develop thinking skills -- like the slide rule? If so, I'd be the
first to sign up, I'd be happy to bring in my set of slide rules for
people to work on (though I'd be taking them home again at the end of
class) and I'd love to learn some other old technologies, too.

Anyone else interested in this, or am I out of my mind?

Ellen Koivisto
SOTA, SF

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