Old engineering & mathmatics stuff...

[CurtEgerer]

So in 1978-81 we were still using IBM mainframes and writing in Fortran. Personal computers were around but we weren't using them for engineering work and nobody I know actually owned one (other than gaming systems). That all changed pretty quickly by the mid-80s.

[masraum]

Ugh! I hated Fortran. It was a required class in the late 80s.

[masraum]

I decided that I wanted an early Pickett slide rule. I found one on ebay. It just arrived.
I believe it is one of the early P&E builds '45-'50, and it's in perfect shape. It's made of 4mm thick magnesium, and has stainless brackets/posts. It doesn't have a logo, just the names and patent numbers, and it's got a serial number.
Its' a model 3.

[A930Rocket]

^^^ That reminds me, I need to check with my brother and sisters to see if they still have my dad‘s slide. He used it when he was at Clemson in the 40s.

[onZedge]

This thread poked some memory cells.

Bulkeley High School, Hartford CT.
Senior year. 1975 I think.
Last Final Exam as a high school student.
Senior AP Math.
Working on the last "extra credit' problem, and just had to "square" a value, and done.
TI calculator battery dies.
90 seconds left...not enough time to do longhand.
I look over to my buddy Mike and ask if his calculator has a "square" key.
He looks at his calculator.
He looks at me.
He says: "Ed, they're ALL square".
We laughed out loud.
We get thrown out of class.
We explain the cause of the outburst to our teacher.
She laughed out loud.
We both get A's. and graduate...

[masraum]

Originally Posted by A930Rocket

^^^ That reminds me, I need to check with my brother and sisters to see if they still have my dad‘s slide. He used it when he was at Clemson in the 40s.

THat would be very cool!

Originally Posted by onZedge

This thread poked some memory cells.

Bulkeley High School, Hartford CT.
Senior year. 1975 I think.
Last Final Exam as a high school student.
Senior AP Math.
Working on the last "extra credit' problem, and just had to "square" a value, and done.
TI calculator battery dies.
90 seconds left...not enough time to do longhand.
I look over to my buddy Mike and ask if his calculator has a "square" key.
He looks at his calculator.
He looks at me.
He says: "Ed, they're ALL square".
We laughed out loud.
We get thrown out of class.
We explain the cause of the outburst to our teacher.
She laughed out loud.
We both get A's. and graduate...

ROFLMAO! Thank goodness I wasn't drinking anything when I read that!

I found a surprisingly active slide rule group on facebook, and started scrolling through some posts. One person posted that they'd gone to the "Cosmosphere, a space museum in Hutchinson, Kansas." They posted photos of " couple of historically noteworthy slide rules on display".

Turns out the one that I just received and posted the pic of above is the same model as one of those historically noteworthy models. Fargin' cool!

[jyl]

https://www.swissmicros.com/products?

By the way, if anyone is looking for a new HP scientific calculator, this company is doing great work.

I have the DM 42.

[astrochex]

Originally Posted by CurtEgerer

So in 1978-81 we were still using IBM mainframes and writing in Fortran. Personal computers were around but we weren't using them for engineering work and nobody I know actually owned one (other than gaming systems). That all changed pretty quickly by the mid-80s.

Many important Government simulations today still use Fortran. Clunky, but it works.

[CurtEgerer]

^^^ And for the most part, they're cheaper in actual dollars than they were in the 80s. Accounting for inflation, they're a bargain - that $250 HP-41CV would be over $800 today! Fun read here:

1982-83 Olympic Sale Catalog

[CurtEgerer]

Originally Posted by astrochex

Many important Government simulations today still use Fortran. Clunky, but it works.

Interesting. I would've thought that had been out of use for decades!

[CurtEgerer]

My 11C purchased in 1980 got me thru school, the PE exam, my entire career as a structural engineer and still in use today. I also have a 15C app (JRPN 15C) on my phone.

[mjohnson]

Originally Posted by CurtEgerer

Interesting. I would've thought that had been out of use for decades!

I'm sure it isn't exclusive, but Fortran is still used in the US DOE supercomputers - for decades hanging around near or atop the "fastest computer" rankings.

I am simple country metallurgist so the closest I ever got was to beta test/break one of the CFD codes on the, then fastest, "Blue Mountain" computer in 1998(?). I guess it was novel in that it could play with other multiphysics codes and run on tens of thousands of processing cores. Fancy it was, but I can break anything through simple incompetence...

We have Stanislaw Ulam's slide rule, used in his foundational work in developing the H-bomb, in our museum. I'll grab a pic of the display when I'm working there on Thursday.

[mjohnson]

Originally Posted by mjohnson

I'm sure it isn't exclusive, but Fortran is still used in the US DOE supercomputers - for decades hanging around near or atop the "fastest computer" rankings.

I am simple country metallurgist so the closest I ever got was to beta test/break one of the CFD codes on the, then fastest, "Blue Mountain" computer in 1998(?). I guess it was novel in that it could play with other multiphysics codes and run on tens of thousands of processing cores. Fancy it was, but I can break anything through simple incompetence...

We have Stanislaw Ulam's slide rule, used in his foundational work in developing the H-bomb, in our museum. I'll grab a pic of the display when I'm working there on Thursday.

Popped in this morning...



And now I guess I should always learn to use one - I actually loved the fun exercises the ancient prof made us do in chemical thermodynamics, using numbers covering over 40 orders of magnitudes with fractional powers and other fun things, only in our heads or on at best a scratchpad just to get a good guess. Understanding exponents was critical, and we got pretty darn close!

[masraum]

Originally Posted by mjohnson

Popped in this morning...



And now I guess I should always learn to use one - I actually loved the fun exercises the ancient prof made us do in chemical thermodynamics, using numbers covering over 40 orders of magnitudes with fractional powers and other fun things, only in our heads or on at best a scratchpad just to get a good guess. Understanding exponents was critical, and we got pretty darn close!

Very cool! Thanks for posting!

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by CurtEgerer

My 11C purchased in 1980 got me thru school, the PE exam, my entire career as a structural engineer and still in use today. I also have a 15C app (JRPN 15C) on my phone.

My 11C died a few years back. I used it for 30 years. I probably bought it ~1985. You can get an 11C or 15C app for your phone. The App I use uses RPN.

[TimT]

My dad gave me this when I started my career, he used it early in his career also..

I started working my real job in 1978, He must have got this in the late '50's

It not a very accurate tool, and I don't think was ever a go to for someone...

I do wish I knew what happened to my fathers, and grandfathers slide rules though.. I did posses them at one point in my life

[masraum]

Originally Posted by red-beard

My 11C died a few years back. I used it for 30 years. I probably bought it ~1985. You can get an 11C or 15C app for your phone. The App I use uses RPN.

Yep





and back when I was on Windows

[1990C4S]

I had a tiny version of this thing in the late 70's. It was about the size of a credit card, my brother brought it back from Korea in 1977.

It was amazingly powerful, stats, polar notation, sinh, etc. Everyone thought I was crazy using something 1/10 the physical size of the HP and TI calculators available at the time....

[masraum]

It was my birthday last month. I very nearly bought another HP 32SII RPN off of eBay. They look like they run $50-100, and several of them look like they are in perfect shape. Mine actually still works, but the LCD is in rough shape, because a battery leaked, so the screen is dark, but you can still see the text. I'd like to have one, but not enough to end up spending $100 for something that will probably sit in a drawer 99.99% of the time.

[SpyderMike]

My go to...a gift from my uncle upon my high school graduation 1977. At that time I had no idea what I would go on to study: