Calculator Wars at your School

[lmamakos]

In high school chemistry, probably 1976 or so, my teacher only allowed us to use a slide rule in class and for exams. He said that his 4 year old daughter knew how to use a calculator, and didn't know what she was computing; we were going to have to know the units and orders of magnitude to get the correct answers.

We all got the option to buy this one "Concise Science Tabls and Circular Slide Rule" through the class. I think it was probably $5 or $7 at the time. If you knew what was good for you, this is what you ordered! It had a periodic table of elements on the back, and a plastic insert card with a bunch of constants and formulae that you didn't have to memorize for the exam. And since it was a circular slide rule, you never ran off the end.

I loved this thing, but somewhere along the way I lost track of it over the years. So of course I had to buy a replacement from eBay for $40 or $50 for absolutely no good reason..

By the way, if you're into slide rules at all, you must know about the International Slide Rule Museum web site! Another labor of love, with so much useful historical information.