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Surprises and Memories
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Surprises and Memories


Dec 5, 2019, 2:23 PM

Do any of you have "stuff" you have saved because you just didn't want to throw it out or it was too good to throw out? I'm not a collector by any means but having hung around this old planet for a long time, I've had many opportunities to decide if I want to keep an item or to cast it aside. Having room for storage in a box, drawer, attic or other place doesn't put the pressure on one whetherto save or "let it go".

Recently, I was looking through some drawers in a desk where I usually stack stuff on top of rather than put the stuff in one of the drawers because I already know the drawers are full. Well, when I started looking through that stuff, what I found were items form my old college days. The thought occurred to me, these items are essentially antiques.

There were two slide rules. Do any of you much younger girls and boys know anything about a slide rule? That was an essential item for any student in engineering. We never left home without that slide rule. It was safely attached to our belt and hung over the right pocket of our trousers. One of my slide rules was very simple but that deluxe model could provide an answer for the most complex problem known to mankind, - - - -if you knew how to use it.

Digging deeper in the drawer, I found my old box of drawing instruments, shining just as brightly as the day I put then in that drawer. There were plastic angles of every description, some turning a little off color due to age. Not finding a drawing board or a large "T" square, I assume I threw those two items out many years ago. There were several inking pens and even a bottle of ink, almost the consistency of jello.

Looking through that drawer and finding those items was almost like waking up on Christmas morning and finding what Santa had left under the tree. I know there are more drawers and boxes that contain items saved over the years. It's going to be fun if and when I find time to continue my search for hidden treasures.

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Re: Surprises and Memories


Dec 5, 2019, 2:32 PM

I have my Dad's (1950 graduate) slide rule. I actually learned how to use it back in the 90s.

Also have some of the French curves he used. Always fun to look at.

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Re: Surprises and Memories


Dec 5, 2019, 2:32 PM

i had a slide tool once, back around '74. traded it for a HP-35. if i'm not mistaken the 35 cost about $375. imagine that in todays $! Its probably the main reason I graduated

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$1,975.50


Dec 5, 2019, 8:52 PM

According to usinflationcalculator.com. Imagine the computing power that buys you today compared to to the calculator.

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Re: Surprises and Memories


Dec 5, 2019, 2:49 PM

Professor Poe in EE in the early 1990s used to show us he could do a power related linear algebra problem quicker on his slide rule than we could do on our calculators.

I still think he was cheating because they were his problems and they followed a pattern we didn't recognize as clueless sophomores seeing the material for the first time.

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Re: Surprises and Memories


Dec 5, 2019, 6:05 PM

Wow! A Dr. Poe story I can relate to!

He was the same when I took E&CE 320 - Principles of Power Production - in the late 70’s. I actually had to withdraw the first time I took his class since I was carrying a D just prior to the deadline to withdraw, as I was certain there was no way to pull up that grade. The next semester I took it with some guys ‘who had access to his previous semester’s exams’. All of his problems were based on simple sin/cosine angles that were .5, etc. They had very little ‘resemblance’ to what was in the textbooks; and the ‘there I was and what I did’ stories from his days in the industry, or during his consulting’ he regaled us with during his lectures were absolutely no help at all.

Once you had the ‘code’ to the problems he always used - merely changing the power input/output(s), various phases, etc., an ‘A’ was pretty easily obtainable.

Nice enough guy; but not so much when it came to actually ‘teaching’ imho.

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Whatever choice(s) you make makes you. Choose wisely.


Lol about the slide rule. I literally just a few months ago


Dec 5, 2019, 3:14 PM

paid $25 (IN AN ANTIQUE SHOP) for the exact same Keuffel and Esser Log Log Duplex Decitrig slide rule we were forced to buy my freshman year at Clemson. (I say forced, because electronic calculators had been around for about two years, but the Profs made us learn to use the slide rule my freshman year, and designated that model as the "standard" we had to buy. Then the next year we were allowed to use the calculators, and the slide rules went in the drawers, or in the trash. Mine went up in smoke in a house fire in 1977.)

I bought it again just to have for a conversation piece, and to recover a little piece of what that fire took from me. Only someone who has experienced it can tell you the feeling of going back home and seeing only the ashes of the home you spent your whole life growing up in. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy, not even a Coot. But, at least only possessions got destroyed, no people involved. Always a silver lining to any cloud. :)

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Joe, I'll bet you had some "mechanical" pencils in the


Dec 5, 2019, 3:18 PM

drawer too. I still remember the first time I heard that term, thinking, "mechanical pencil", does it do the writing for you? :)

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Re: Surprises and Memories


Dec 5, 2019, 3:32 PM

Joe, I can't help but wonder how little stuff will still be around in as good a shape as yours if I ever make it to 98. They just don't make em like they used to....

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Re: Surprises and Memories


Dec 5, 2019, 8:07 PM



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Re: Surprises and Memories


Dec 5, 2019, 9:00 PM

I still have two slide rules buried in a closet somewhere - I know I do 'cuz I saw 'em not more than a decade or so ago. Got one for physics in high school, and a deluxe K&E model I got at Clemson as a freshman in 1966. I've also still got the drawing kit and board from Engineering Graphics 109, but the board's been pretty well mauled over the years being used for projects its manufacturer never envisioned. Pretty sure I've got the T-square and triangles somewhere, too. Hand-held calculators came along just a little bit too late for me.

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