Drawing the Line...

[Mark Jerde]

-- Mark

[Mark Jerde]

I have a Post Versalog that interestingly enough I got in trade with my high school chemistry teacher about 1977 for a calculator I'd won at a math contest. (It wasn't RPN. I had a HP 25C. Who needs a calculator you have to punch parenthesis? ;-)

I can still use the Versalog's C & D scales, and multiply / divide by pi by CF & DF, but the rest of my slide rule skills have, er, slidden. I could pull the hardbound (!) user manul from the shelf, or play around awhile, or DAGS, but if you'd like this opportunity to shine , how did you do that?

I did college (not just attended ) in 1977-82. I took my slide rule and calculator to all the exams, and I was usually the only one with a slip stick. I actually got to use it once on a test, and I was so proud of myself for recognizing it ahead of time. "Given these series of load and deflection points, at what load will the beam not return to original after the load is removed?" The 'Yield Point,' IIRC. Everyone else was frantically plotting the points on graph paper. I set the C/D ratio of the first point & slid the cursor to the other points. The first one that didn't match was the weight too far. I finished all the problems before anyone else had completed the graph of first one. I wrote "By slide rule" on the test & fortunately the instructor was old enough that that was a good enough explaination. Like woodworking, the right tool for the right job. ;-)

Ditto.

Thanks.

-- Mark

[George]

K&E? Still have one stored below the stage at school.

I'm saving my Jeppson circular for my kids.

[Silvan]

Me... :)

It's funny, actually. I used to be a digital person, and I wore a Casio Databank for years. After I grew up, I became an analog person. I've killed four different cheap Timex Expeditions. I get'em with a date wheel, but that's as complicated as I want to see in a watch.

We have an analog clock in every room in the house too.

One of these days I want to build a grandfather clock, and build a mechanical movement. Grandfather clocks with electronic movements make me want to hork.

[Silvan]

Hadn't used one of those since the breakup, until I had to make a call from a business that evidently doesn't believe in newfangled technology.

I grew up with the rotaries, but I realize now how much they used to suck. Try dialing 1-800-xx8-0999 (some numbers omitted to foil would-be spammers) on a rotary. I think it took half an hour just to get the number dialed. :)

[CW]

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Touch tone was new in the early 60's. I recall going to the New York World's Fair in 1962 (or 3 or 4?) and visiting the AT&T pavilion. You cold test yourself on how fast you could dial as compared to how fast you could push the buttons. Don't laugh, there were people lined up to try it. We were easily entertained back then. Ed [e-mail]

[Silvan]

I like it. Let's talk to Dubya about this.

[Silvan]

No contest. Buttons are about 10,000% faster. :)

My great aunt had touchtone, but my parents were too poor/cheap to pay the difference. We had pulse dialing well after the breakup, and well after we bought a bunch of pushbutton phones.

beep beep beep beep beep beep beep... clickclickclickclickclick clickclickclick clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick clickclick clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick clickclickclickclickclickclickclick clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick

Redialing BBSes used to suck.

[Bc]

But let's say you have two (2) spoons and you multiply those two spoons by zero (0) spoons.

What the heck happened to the original two spoons?

Bc [e-mail]

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[Caleb Strockbine]

With a little research, I bet one could make a pretty solid case that the digital age would have been a lot slower in coming without New Math. A core concept of new math is the ability to deal with numbers in radices other than 10, and it turns out that this is exactly the sort of thing that's helpful when you start to learn about digital computers. While perhaps not essential, being able to think in base 2, base 8, base 10, and base 16, and convert easily between them, is even today an important skill for hardware and software engineers alike, and was likely much more important back in the 60's and 70's when people worked much closer to the hardware.

So, maybe we're not so practiced today at multiplying and dividing by adding and subtracting logarithms, but we're probably better prepared for the world many of us work in today.

[George]

AH, but remember that the "early" computer languages were hex.

All those computers were designed and built by people who had good grounding in "old" math. Base ten is a lot easier for math concepts, because we _do_ have ten fingers. When firmly grounded, we can fold our thumbs inside.

[George]

[Trent©]

But, when they first came out, all you had to dial was 4 numbers!!

And, before that, you didn't even hafta DIAL! All you had to do was turn the crank...until the operator answered.

Have a nice week...

Trent

Certified breast self-exam subcontractor.

[Alan McClure]

"Dad, which way is clockwise?". #2 daughter has never had that problem. I'm old enough to remember when the small town in eastern Washington where we lived at the time converted from a switch board in a lady's living room to a new-fangled electric exchange. The death of crank phones and party lines was on the horizon. (1953 BTW)

How many people now can even understand George Carlin's question, "When you dial O, do you give your finger a free ride back?"?

ARM

[Silvan]

I'm not there yet. Getting there. Maybe I'll enjoy a few years of perfect vision when nearsighted meets farsighted. :)

I _am_ already having to adjust the length of my arm to get stuff into focus. :(

[Silvan]

I don't quite get the new math and hex thing either. I'm not as comfortable in hex as I used to be, and I'm terrible in octal, but I know nothing of "new math" and I used to do hex all the time when I was doing x86 assembler.

It's mostly just that these days you should always use the API and forget about trying to wrestle the last ounce of performance out. Portabilty is the rule of the day, and low level programming is the domain of kernel and device driver hackers. Nobody else really needs those skills anymore.

[Henry St.Pierre]

Yup.

"Bill, that cigar really stinks." Hillary Rodham Clinton (as a Ms.)

[Henry St.Pierre]

Do yourself a favor, build the clock case and buy the mechanical movement. Unless of course you have great metal working ability, are a gear hobber, have mucho metal working machinery (or a lot of files). However; a wooden movement is not out of the question if you have great woodworking ability, can be the woodworking equivalent of a gear hobber, only really need hand tools. I often thought of building a wooden wristwatch to match my pen, but however I don't have great ...... Regards, Hank

[CW]

After being nearsighted for over thirty years, I just got bifocals last week. That in between good vision doesn't happen.