>     I am not surprized by how many of us listers have a slide
> rule.... (yes,
> I was forced by my Sophomore physics teacher in high school)
> to learn how to
> use a slide rule ... then I could use my hp 34C!)

We had statewide competitions in math in high school, including in slide
rule. I routinely smoked everyone in our school, then got smoked even more
badly by the kids from Andrews. It was just a little town, but there was
something in the water down there: they came to the regional competitions
and blew everyone else into shivering piles of debris.

>    But does anyone else have a 'circular slide rule'?  Yep...
> I got one at a
> rummage sale decades ago for the math and physics formulas
> that are on it as
> well as the periodic table that is on the back of it!!

Ugh. We tried those for a while, but the constant wrist-twisting was a
killer (hmmm--maybe the precursor to carpal-tunnel-like RSIs?) Yeah, they
could get more info into a smaller space (the outer rings of a 4-inch
diameter circ were longer than a 12-inch stick), but they were too hard to
manipulate quickly.


Steve