OT - does anyone remember credit card torches?

still seem to be available ...

They'll probably send you a sample.

YMMV:

Thinking of which, back in the 1980s I had a Casio credit-card calculator less than 1mm thick, called the SL-800.

It was fiddly but worked quite well.

I still have something very similar, except it's a Systema EX4. The layout is slightly different to this one which is a Systema EX2 and appears only to have 2 solar cells, whereas the EX 4 has four cells. Still works, given a reasonable light source.

The Casio really was thin at 0.8mm, whereas a credit card is 0.76mm thick. I suppose it was a demonstration of what they could mass produce.

As far as I remember, Casio's later credit-card models were two or three times as thick, like many of the competition.

Now I'm becoming nostalgic ... after having had three slide rules, I bought this as my first calculator.

I couldn't afford this Commodore SR-1800, which had been my first choice.

"The kids of today don't know how lucky they are. Bah!"

I've still got my university slide rule bought in 1959! I've also got my grandfather's slide rule, but its a bit stiff to operate being of wooden constructon.

Ah, the slide rule - I doubt if kids of today even know what that is let alone how to use one. I had several over the years, typically about 12" long, as well as a 'rotary' one such as one of these,

times as thick, like many of the competition.

I have no idea what happened to my loglog slide rule. :-(

Well, Sam Cooke didn't in 1960...

I never got my head around how to operate a slide rule.

Seemed to be a maths geek thing.

Cheers

Dave R

And physics. Maybe some engineering applications. They had their place in applications where accuracy was not particularly important.

They're cute, I have loads, and was an "expert" user. But they are historical curiosities now.

nib

Don't be silly, any six or seven year old who has been taught sums at school could learn to use it for multiplication in five minutes.

You would enjoy the round slide rule then.

It's a bit like Rubiks Cube I suppose, the people who practice at it, are crazy fast.

My slide rule was made from bamboo and the bamboo seems to be suspended in some sort of other material. I couldn't make sense of the grain structure.

The bamboo makes it slide, and the material is inert enough to avoid distortions of the material over time. It can get a bit sticky at times (the slide action). It's somewhere in the house, but I can't remember exactly where.

The good slide rules, were not department store items. You could buy all-plastic slide rules in the department store, but those aren't worth owning (they could warp if you were careless). The bamboo ones are a bit nicer. The face was finished in white celluloid.

They came with a leather carry case, and the leather carry case could be fitted to your pants, as a kind of "ornamental sword". But the novelty of wearing it that way wore off quickly. And as programmable calculators had just come out, the slide rule disappeared entirely. The programmable calculators also had a loop for your pants :-) Always know your customer. Rule of thumb -- if you own something, fasten it to your pants.

Paul

Of my collection, the ones that have fared best are the plastic ones, Faber Castell and the like. Wood is hopeless, they have all warped more or less. The one metal one is OK, a Pickett, but not the nicest action.

The super accurate ones (I have Otis King, Fuller and Fowler) have all suffered with age. The surprising thing about the Fuller, which has a huge spiral scale, is that it is not as accurate as it should be, the scale is not as well divided as it could be.

nib

Slide rules are one of those items once cherished but made obsolete en masse fairly quickly and since have laid unused and forgotten in loads of drawers,desks and lofts. The generation that used them for real and invested in a well engineered quality version are dying fast and a lot of these fine items can be found almost for peanuts in antique shops,boot sales etc . Apart from looking a nice decorative item there isn’t much you can do with them.

Optical microscopes are another example, a friend bought one that would have very expensive when it was made 60 years ago. For £30 he bought an item in good order that kept his children fascinated for days and directed their interest away from the games consoles and their phones for awhile.

GH

I never had a slide rule of my own, we did use log tables at school, and made Napier's bones, then calculators landed. I've inherited Dad's slide rule in its battered case, I could do a multiplication with it if I had to ... then boggle at the other scales.

Such as these:

nib

Ahhh, I always wondered what Crossfield Electronics in Peterborough actually did, they were generous enough to let a rag-tag bunch of us use a room for a "computer club" in the early 80s

I applied for a job there working on this:

We were taught the basics at school.