I literally have my slide rule from high school 57-61 in the drawer next to my left hand. And now that you mentioned it I wonder if I should start a thread about who has the oldest physical whatever still with them. My slide rule might be up there??? Just wunderin’.
I still have a slide rule but it is from 1966 and is plastic.
I probably have the oldest calculator. I am pretty sure it was from 1974. It was a Sears but identical except for color to a Rockwell.
It has some scientific functions but the best thing is the beautiful green lcd display. It takes 4 AA batteries and they last a long time since I only use it to balance my checkbook.
Did I mention that beautiful large green lcd display?
When I took Geometry as a high school sophomore in 1969, I was given a slide rule and the CRC book on math formulas and algorithms, both donated by CRC. I think I still have the slide rule around someplace.
I no longer have my college slide rule (72-76). I’ve got my dad’s somewhere (62 maybe).
My Physicist husband just sold his ‘60s slide rule on Ebay yesterday. He’d seen one that sold for $700 last week. He didn’t get quite that much.
My husband’s slide rule is older than yours! And he has all of his old books (UC Berkeley and Northwestern U) which he presses on the grandchildren and casual students that he encounters. One of his math books he considers the finest ever written.
Regarding the cartoon — that really happened to him with an unexpected quiz. I believe he’d had the flu and had missed a class. He still got an A, much to his surprise.
I still have my slide rule. It is a Sun Hemmi Chemical Engineers slide rule. Paid $16 HK dollars ($2.50 in 1960)when I was in Hong Kong. Had to get permission from profs to use it on exams because the back side had temperature and pressure conversions plus atomic weights.
I started to say something, realized that you wrote 57-61 and thought better of it.
The oldest thing I have is my field jacket from military boot camp in 1977.
I was never a slide rule guy but I still have my HP48SX that I bought new in 1990. Programmable and infrared data transfer. Very cool...
Never did learn to use the advanced scales. Last used it in anger was in a chemistry exam. I cursed as all the students with new electronic calculators were finishing the exam am I am still slamming away on the slide rule.
Got a HP25 programmable right after that debacle.
My daughter went in to her calc exam, in which calculators were not permitted, carrying her father’s slide rule.
She asked the TA if the slide rule was acceptable. He looked at her and asked “You know how to use that?!”
And then said, *Well, the rules are no calculators and that’s not a calculator, so if you can use that, go ahead.*
I started as a double major: engineering and zoology. Had the aptitude for engineering but not the passion like my ME father.
I still have my slide rule. I bought the best.
I had a movie-scene experience in an Organic Chemistry mid-term: While using my slide rule, I suddenly heard a wailing voice cry, “My battery died!”
I felt sympathetic but validated.
Depends.
Oldest thing that was originally mine?
A little plastic horse. There is a picture of me aged < one year lying on the dining room table looking at it. I can reach out from here and take it down from a shelf. I’m 54.
Oldest thing that has been in the immediate family that I have close at hand? My grandfather’s, then my dad’s Mossberg 151 .22. I learned to shoot with it at 8 years; it had to be supported by a pillow at the front.
Oldest thing that has been in the extended family?
1908 Pathe cabinet phonograph.
No slide rules, and the oldest calculator is from the 1990 and would be found risible by an engineer.