[HN Gopher] Cylindrical Slide Rules
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Cylindrical Slide Rules
Author : Kye
Score : 45 points
Date : 2024-05-09 19:43 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (americanhistory.si.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (americanhistory.si.edu)
| _qua wrote:
| I thought about buying a slide rule just for fun to learn how
| they work. I couldn't find any regular sized traditional slide
| rules on Amazon. Does anyone sell them for a reasonable price?
| ForOldHack wrote:
| They have not made slide rules in decades, so most of them are
| collectors items.
|
| Best would be to print one on legal sized paper, and cut it
| out, and learn the ropes.
|
| Now, if you get more serious, you could glue said paper to a
| thin piece of plywood, and if you get even more serious, you
| could 3D print one.
|
| I googled 3d printed slide rule, and now, after my morning
| productivity was ruined with particle systems, and my afternoon
| productivity was ruined with archaic calculating devices... my
| weekend is now ruined with trying to actually PRINT a slide
| rule.
|
| When are the meetings for HN addicts???
| kragen wrote:
| alleluia, sibling
| ishtanbul wrote:
| You are in the meeting right now
| colechristensen wrote:
| They still make slide rules for aviation
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E6B
| throw0101d wrote:
| Also on watches:
|
| * https://timeandtidewatches.com/how-to-use-a-slide-rule-
| bezel...
|
| * https://www.ablogtowatch.com/how-to-use-a-watch-bezel-
| slide-...
|
| * https://www.exquisitetimepieces.com/blog/slide-rule-
| watches-...
|
| Breitling (for their Navitimer):
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PBRX8WCZR0
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH9N7loHYwCdCM3G68
| svj...
| buildsjets wrote:
| Most pilot's shops still will sell you an E6-B flight computer,
| which is essentially a circular slide rule on one side, and a
| wind drift correction table on the other side. Mr. Spock
| approves of the use of the E6-B for galactic navigation.
|
| https://www.nicolamarras.it/calcolatoria/regoli_aeronautici_...
|
| https://mediafiles.aero.und.edu/aero.und.edu/aviation/traine...
| GarnetFloride wrote:
| I picked up one for the '50s in an antique shop, and then a
| friend gave me a 12 inch and a 6 inch slide rules with
| instruction book! Good times.
| kragen wrote:
| this ebay seller has a small one for 20 bucks:
| https://www.ebay.com/itm/355702177361
|
| full-sized 300-millimeter-long ones tend to run more like 50 to
| 100
|
| if you're in the usa you can probably pick them up at garage
| sales and estate sales for a lot less than that
|
| i wrote one in tcl/tk last millennium which you can run on any
| machine supporting tk, obviously including gnu/linux and i
| think still including android
| http://canonical.org/~kragen/slide-rule.tcl
|
| printing one out on paper or transparency film, as foroldhack
| suggested, and gluing it to some pieces of wood can get you a
| much higher quality one than my tcl hack, probably equivalent
| to the quality of a hundred-dollar ebay find. for best quality,
| print out your scale on an inkjet printer, not a laser (lasers
| can have nonlinearity, especially in the horizontal dimension,
| though led-strip 'lasers' won't). i'm more confident in the
| horizontal dimension of the inkjet than its vertical dimension
| (the paper advance) but haven't been able to measure any
| nonlinearity in either
| spc476 wrote:
| I have four side rulers, all of them I bought at antique
| stores. One of them, the Pickett N600, was used by the Apollo
| astronauts (it's small---6in (15cm) long, made from aluminum,
| and very nice). I think I paid about $10-15 for each of them.
| crdrost wrote:
| Just to give you a hint about how they work, slide rules are
| based on the geometric mean rather than the arithmetic one:
| halfway between _A_ and _B_ on a normal ruler you will find
| 1/2( _A_ + _B_ ), on a logarithmic scale you will find [?]( _A_
| x _B_ ).
|
| Due to exponent rules this makes it possible to use two
| logarithmic scales to compute _A_ x _B_ / _C_ in the following
| way:
|
| 1. Line up one scale's _A_ with the second scale's _C_.
|
| 2. Look for the second scale's _B_ on the first scale.
|
| When you're multiplying, _C_ is usually 1 or 10 (this would
| usually be done with scales labeled C and D) and when you 're
| dividing _B_ is usually 1 or 10, but sometimes your problem
| works out that you can just do both at once.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| HN just wrecked all my morning productivity with particle spaces,
| and now my afternoon productivity is wrecked with dated computing
| devices. I will never get anything done.
| slackfan wrote:
| So, what is it that you do exactly?
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| He just told you, he surfs HN, diving into rabbit holes. And
| from a sister comment, 3D prints resulting stuff. Same as all
| of us, right?
| Kye wrote:
| I have some bad news: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta
| mkarliner wrote:
| I still have my Otis King helical slide rule I bought at 15!
|
| I think that gives me some level of geek kudos
| niccl wrote:
| I've got my father's. Still in the original box.
|
| I learned to use a normal linear slide rule at school, but
| every time I look at this I have to read the manual to sort out
| how to use it. I'd like to fix it in my head so I could whip it
| out at work when calculations are needed. Just for geek points
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(page generated 2024-05-10 23:00 UTC)