3 ms·

I still have my old slide rule (aluminum) and my Dad's (wood). I love the things, but had no idea somebody had built a web site and a company around them. After

I still have my old slide rule (aluminum) and my Dad's (wood). I love the things, but had no idea somebody had built a web site and a company around them. After the zombie apocalypse, there will be no batteries and calculators won't work. But we'll be able to rebuild society with slide rules. If we can find any. RIP.

CamperBob2 3y ago
Walter was also a fixture in a small but active community of devotees of old-school HP and Tektronix test equipment, and I think he was active in 80s-era HP computer user groups as well. His storefront is still maintained by his wife: https://www.sphere.bc.ca/ https://www.sphere.bc.ca/ . Not to be missed is the 'classic' version of the site they maintained for years: https://www.sphere.bc.ca/oldsite/index.html https://www.sphere.bc.ca/oldsite/index.html
- jacquesm 3y ago
  That website is a gem. I have a 2235 here that I just can't part with, it has long since been replaced by a digital one but I'd feel like a complete traitor if I sold it.
- tgv 3y ago
  De mortibus and all that, but their prices for slide rules are pretty high. I bought an Aristo in good conditions for €10 last month.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    That's true, but consider: there is a difference between someone selling a pile of stuff amongst which there happens to be an old slide rule versus someone specializing in slide rules. The device itself may be next to free but you're going to have to keep it in stock pretty much forever and working on the classical ones is going to be pretty time consuming. I'd see it as buying an item from a museum subsidizing the curator rather than as a purely commercial transaction. After all, even $10 is a lot of money for a piece of 30 year old plastic so there has to be something else that makes it tick. And slide rule collectors are a thing. If you just need one to use then $10 is fine, if you're looking for that one special issue with the weird scales then suddenly $200 may be acceptable, especially if you know it will sustain the world of slide rules for a couple of days longer. In dutch there is this word called 'gunnen' which I have not yet found a good English translation for, it denotes the act of allowing someone to have your business even if you know the price isn't as low as it could go because you like the person. This is a clear case of that concept.
  - pimlottc 3y ago
    > De mortibus I had to look up when this meant, I think you mean "De /mortuis/ [nil nisi bonum]" [0]? You may have thinking of a different phrase [1]. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_mortuis_nil_nisi_bonum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_mortuis_nil_nisi_bonum 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_mortibus_persecutorum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_mortibus_persecutorum
    - tgv 3y ago
      You're right. I mixed up words (death, dead/deceased).
monero-xmr 3y ago
In a post-catastrophe society that totally destroys our networks, knowledge is so dispersed and so many computers and electricity generation mechanisms exist, that I find it impossible to believe Wikipedia and a library of ebooks won’t be preserved in some fashion. From that point it’s a land rush to establish new companies and factories to get us back to prior glory.
bitwize 3y ago
I'll be ready to go for the apocalypse too. I recently scored an abacus at an antique shop -- a Japanese soroban that looks like it was made in the 50s or 60s. I call it the most retro piece of computing equipment I own.
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  I love the fancy Japanese abacus I bought at a thrift shop, it's very nice and simply elegant. I also really enjoyed learning to use it, it was surprisingly easy. I also really have enjoyed learning more about "abacus culture". There are students so good with them that they don't even need abacus' anymore. They just use "air abacus'"
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    The brain will really never cease to amaze me, that's a very interesting story. So they have internalized the abacus to the point that it's entire state is present in their head. I wonder how long they can maintain that state and if they are able to mentally put it aside for a while, perform another calculation and then recall the stored one. I've seen a similar thing with a really good chess player friend of mine, he could play without actually looking at the board.
  - WillAdams 3y ago
    Similarly, there is a Korean counting system, Chisanbop, which works quite well up to 99: https://sciencing.com/finger-math-basic-addition-counting-4861020.html https://sciencing.com/finger-math-basic-addition-counting-48...
chongli 3y ago
My solar Casio will keep working after the zombie apocalypse: no batteries in it. Works great, even in low light conditions.

CamperBob2 3y ago

Walter was also a fixture in a small but active community of devotees of old-school HP and Tektronix test equipment, and I think he was active in 80s-era HP computer user groups as well. His storefront is still maintained by his wife: https://www.sphere.bc.ca/ https://www.sphere.bc.ca/ . Not to be missed is the 'classic' version of the site they maintained for years: https://www.sphere.bc.ca/oldsite/index.html https://www.sphere.bc.ca/oldsite/index.html

jacquesm 3y ago
That website is a gem. I have a 2235 here that I just can't part with, it has long since been replaced by a digital one but I'd feel like a complete traitor if I sold it.
tgv 3y ago
De mortibus and all that, but their prices for slide rules are pretty high. I bought an Aristo in good conditions for €10 last month.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  That's true, but consider: there is a difference between someone selling a pile of stuff amongst which there happens to be an old slide rule versus someone specializing in slide rules. The device itself may be next to free but you're going to have to keep it in stock pretty much forever and working on the classical ones is going to be pretty time consuming. I'd see it as buying an item from a museum subsidizing the curator rather than as a purely commercial transaction. After all, even $10 is a lot of money for a piece of 30 year old plastic so there has to be something else that makes it tick. And slide rule collectors are a thing. If you just need one to use then $10 is fine, if you're looking for that one special issue with the weird scales then suddenly $200 may be acceptable, especially if you know it will sustain the world of slide rules for a couple of days longer. In dutch there is this word called 'gunnen' which I have not yet found a good English translation for, it denotes the act of allowing someone to have your business even if you know the price isn't as low as it could go because you like the person. This is a clear case of that concept.
- pimlottc 3y ago
  > De mortibus I had to look up when this meant, I think you mean "De /mortuis/ [nil nisi bonum]" [0]? You may have thinking of a different phrase [1]. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_mortuis_nil_nisi_bonum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_mortuis_nil_nisi_bonum 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_mortibus_persecutorum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_mortibus_persecutorum
  - tgv 3y ago
    You're right. I mixed up words (death, dead/deceased).

monero-xmr 3y ago

In a post-catastrophe society that totally destroys our networks, knowledge is so dispersed and so many computers and electricity generation mechanisms exist, that I find it impossible to believe Wikipedia and a library of ebooks won’t be preserved in some fashion. From that point it’s a land rush to establish new companies and factories to get us back to prior glory.

bitwize 3y ago

I'll be ready to go for the apocalypse too. I recently scored an abacus at an antique shop -- a Japanese soroban that looks like it was made in the 50s or 60s. I call it the most retro piece of computing equipment I own.

iancmceachern 3y ago
I love the fancy Japanese abacus I bought at a thrift shop, it's very nice and simply elegant. I also really enjoyed learning to use it, it was surprisingly easy. I also really have enjoyed learning more about "abacus culture". There are students so good with them that they don't even need abacus' anymore. They just use "air abacus'"
- jacquesm 3y ago
  The brain will really never cease to amaze me, that's a very interesting story. So they have internalized the abacus to the point that it's entire state is present in their head. I wonder how long they can maintain that state and if they are able to mentally put it aside for a while, perform another calculation and then recall the stored one. I've seen a similar thing with a really good chess player friend of mine, he could play without actually looking at the board.
- WillAdams 3y ago
  Similarly, there is a Korean counting system, Chisanbop, which works quite well up to 99: https://sciencing.com/finger-math-basic-addition-counting-4861020.html https://sciencing.com/finger-math-basic-addition-counting-48...

chongli 3y ago

My solar Casio will keep working after the zombie apocalypse: no batteries in it. Works great, even in low light conditions.