2 ms·
I used slide rules a bunch when I was in high school, just before calculators killed them forever. I felt that I had a better grasp of what a particular comput
by kabdib 4y ago
I used slide rules a bunch when I was in high school, just before calculators killed them forever.
I felt that I had a better grasp of what a particular computation meant. The need to keep track of orders of magnitude and so on helped me catch errors that would have slipped through if I was just pressing buttons and copying down results. The practice helped me later on with "back of the envelope" calculations.
It doesn't make me nostalgic for slide rules, though. Give me an HP calculator any day.
- bombcar 4y agoThat’s the exact point - you worked through it and got a “feel” for how the variables worked, so even if you use a calculator you get a feel if things are off. Same thing happens everywhere - people don’t understand enough to do something like ballparking some numbers to check if they’re at all reasonable - but this is useful.