>>No, I do not have _my_ high school/college slide rule, which was a
>>magnificent 12" yellow aluminum Pickett with a hard leather case and a belt
>>loop. ...
Nice! Why have I never seen an aluminium slide rule?
Also, for the benefit of us non-Americans, what approximate age is "high
school"?
At school slide rules were the only permitted calculating machines in
maths classes up to age 16 in my day (academic year 1982-83)
(requirement was dropped a couple of years later). I went through a
series of cheap plastic ones and ended up with an expensive plastic one
- I asked the local stationers for a replacement cursor and they sold me
this really nice slide rule for the same price (one pound) just to get
rid of it! This too has lost its cursor, tho' I believe I still have
the rule somewhere.
More recently I bought a decent wooden one for a similar price at a car
boot sale - still in box with plate glass cursor. I also have a special
purpose cardboard one with two slides that is meant to calculate the
flow of water through pipes of various sizes, materials and gradients.
>>700+ units. Me, I have 30, including a 7 foot long Pickett classroom rule.
Wow! On a 7 foot rule you should be able to get four sig. figs without
too much interpolation anywhere along the length. Or are the markings
too coarse for that?
Philip.
If only there was a mechanism to persuade companies to allow such hobby
use of archaic software. It would be great if there was a standard
document, perhaps similar to that OpenVMS license, that would eliminate
the guilt from violating someone's copyright. "What's the harm" isn't
good enough for me. To me, preservation of the rights of the old software
is almost as important as the software itself. But it's not easy.
It may be impossible. You can get an old system from a dumpster
and if you're lucky you find floppies and the manuals.
Take an example from one of my pet projects, the Terak computer.
Terak was sold to CalComp, and CalComp was bought (or was always
owned) by McDonnell-Douglas. The last anyone saw of the Terak assets
was a semi driving from Scottsdale to New Hampshire. This Herculean
task now consists of finding someone within MD who has the time
and the good will to care, and who's been around long enough to
know what the heck I'm asking for.
Then I've got to persuade them to give me the right to, oh, copy some
fifteen-year-old floppies for someone without a legit copy, or to write
an emulator that uses the code and allow others to get a copy.
I've long heard that some varieties of dark-side hacking involve
Social Engineering that can open a door or shoulder-surf a password,
but I doubt it's powerful enough magic to persuade a defense contractor
to sign a paper to give you something for nothing.
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
My Mac Portable has 2MB RAM, 1MB soldered on and 1MB on an expansion
board. This board has room for more chips, which, if added, would make
the board a total of 3MB. The problem is that the board has chips on
both sides, so that the little legs stay on the surface, instead of
going through. Can I technically solder on the chips by myself, or is it
unrealistic?
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
<If only there was a mechanism to persuade companies to allow such hobby
<use of archaic software. It would be great if there was a standard
OpenVMS archaic? It's a current product and definatly a high end OS
and it includs DECnet networking.
Unlike DOS VMS is richly packaged with tools, utilities, libraries,
editors, VMSmail, DCL command line language, macro32 and DECwindows
client and server.
<document, perhaps similar to that OpenVMS license, that would eliminate
<the guilt from violating someone's copyright. "What's the harm" isn't
Keep in mind while they grant a hobby license it's for 1 full version
level behind. DEC policy was sofware that old is unsupported but the
copyright is still valid. Still V5.4->v6.1 systems are still good for
production work. There are still systems in production use still running
them.
Often the problem with "abandoned" software is finding the oner of record
or who it is.
Allison
<Nice! Why have I never seen an aluminium slide rule?
No idea, here in the lat 60s and early 70s they were one step better than
plastic but not as expensive as the bamboo or mahogany ones.
<Also, for the benefit of us non-Americans, what approximate age is "high
<school"?
approx 15-18 years.
<At school slide rules were the only permitted calculating machines in
<maths classes up to age 16 in my day (academic year 1982-83)
In the late 60s and early 70s slide rules were permitted where the
calculated value was part of the answer for geometry, trig and calculus
90% of a given problem was the work and 10% the actual numeric result.
In the technical (EE world) it'was expected you knew how to run a
slipstick and answers were expected to be accurate to three places
plus correct exponent. I was the first one to bring an electronic
(pocket almost) calc but I still kept a 7" stick for quick trig
functions.
<boot sale - still in box with plate glass cursor. I also have a special
<purpose cardboard one with two slides that is meant to calculate the
<flow of water through pipes of various sizes, materials and gradients.
I still have a few special ones including a plasticized paperboard one
for coil spring design.
The 15" I have is good to 5 places on the left and 4 on the right for
basic finctions, trig and logs were good to 4 and 3 places.
Allison
-----Original Message-----
From: Philip.Belben(a)powertech.co.uk <Philip.Belben(a)powertech.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, February 07, 1998 2:09 AM
Subject: Re: slipping sticks
>>>No, I do not have _my_ high school/college slide rule, which was a
>>>magnificent 12" yellow aluminum Pickett with a hard leather case and a
belt
>>>loop. ...
>
>Nice! Why have I never seen an aluminium slide rule?
Almost ALL Pickett Slide Rules are aluminium.
[snip/snip]
>>>700+ units. Me, I have 30, including a 7 foot long Pickett classroom
rule.
>
>Wow! On a 7 foot rule you should be able to get four sig. figs without
>too much interpolation anywhere along the length. Or are the markings
>too coarse for that?
The 7' rule is simply a blown up version of a 12" rule. Everything 7 times
bigger. Sure, you can estimate a bit better, but you wouldn't really want
to try to calculate with this thing. Its massive!!
PS: Brand new Pickett ES500 rules (quite nice model) can be had for US$25 at
the Gemmary.
Tell them I sent you ;)
Cheers
Andrew
Andrew,
> PS: Brand new Pickett ES500 rules (quite nice model) can be had for US$25 at
> the Gemmary.
Who? Where? Seriously, I've never heard of the Gemmary - can you give
a bit more info?
$25 is reasonable for a nice slide rule, I agree.
Philip.
> My friend (and I, for that matter), would never condone software piracy,
> in all seriousness. However (again, hypothetically speaking of course)
> my friend would have a lot of trouble understanding how posessing and
> running an old, obsoleted version of VMS would bring harm to anybody or to
> any organization. He might also be very disappointed that there were no
> available inexpensive hobbyist licenses available, which, if one existed,
> he would certainly jump at and support with his own hard earned money,
> quite happily.
If your hypothetical friend lives hypothetically in the United State of
hypothetical America, he might, hypothetically, spend some time searching
http://www.dejanews.com/ for the original hypothetical hobbyist VMS
license announcement, which would (hypothetically) include a URL pointing
at a place to obtain a hypothetical CD-ROM distribution. Your hypothetical
friend would then, hypothetically, be reduced to finding someone willing
to copy said hypothetical distribution files to hypothetically blank
TK50s (hypothetically, some extra work would have to be done to build
a hypothetically bootable standalone backup tape as well).
I'd supply the URL, but I don't have it handy and I don't recall it offhand.
Roger Ivie
ivie(a)cc.usu.edu
<Is there a difference between a DecStation 3100 and a VaxStation 3100?
<saw some of each today at one of my favorite money pits (escaped for unde
<$200 today!). Are they Vaxen or something else? I'm not too interested
<(I'm an HP 3000 guy).
DECstations is MIPS (R4000 I think) cpu and VAXstation is VAX powered.
What do they get for the oddball SCSI-68 to SCSI-50 cable
Allison
