william drylie wrote:

>Hi group;
> There is a lengthy article with two pictures about the University
>at Buffalo's slide rule and calculator exhibit. The article is mostly
>about slide rules. The pictures are of rules. Go to
>http://www.buffalo.edu/reporter/vol34/vol34n13/articles/SlideRules.html
>
> This is a very good article with one of the curators demonstrating
>how to wear your slide rule "gunslinger" style.
>
> The second is a reprint from a magazine article dealing with Social
>issues in Society called the Visible Self. It was reprinted from an
>article from the New York Times July 21st 1998 and it is entitled
>"Scruffy is Badge of Pride, But some Physicists Long For Cool" It
>basically speaks of the time when scientists and engineers carried slide
>rules visibly to proclaim their occupation and with the advent of the
>electronic calculator slide rules vanished and no substitute icon of
>professional status was available. It mentions Keuffel & Esser as being
>a top of the line slide rule and an emblem of professional identity that
>suggested intelligence and education. The authors name is Malcolm W.
>Browne.
> My wife gave me the article today, she is doing graduate work and is
>presently researching peoples attire as a social issue. Subscribers to
>the NY Times would be able to access this article through the online
>archives. I will see if I can find a link somewhere via the web where
>everyone might be able to view it.
>
> The last sighting is in the movie "Sky Captain And The World Of
>Tommorrow". About 15 minutes or so into the film the scientist Dex is
>using what appears to be a Nestler or Faber Castell rule to do some
>triangulating of a position on a map. There is also a circular on the
>table, but you have to look close for that one. There are two spots
>with the rule, about three or four seconds each. I'm not much of a
>Science Fiction fan, but this was a pretty good movie, a mixture of old
>and new technology, kinda puts you in mind of Isaac Asimov's work with
>all the robots in the movie.
> A few years before the end of the slide rule, K&E hired the Futures
>Group to publish a projected report of the future and how technology
>would advance exponentially and people would be living in joined domed
>cities with outside transporation not requiring wheels or petroleum
>fuels. New and more advanced slide rules had to be designed and
>manufactured to meet the needs of this technology the summary
>mentioned. It is ironic that the group did not predict the demise of
>the slide rule with it's predictions of advancing technology.
>Bill Drylie
>P. S. A Sioux medicine man here in North Dakota once told me that it is
>traditional thought for them that someone or something lives on only as
>long as the last person who remembers it. That is why they pass stories
>of their tribe and their tradtions from one generation to the next. It
>seems to me it is like this with slide rules. I have a feeling that
>with the help of groups like this, the slide rule will live on from
>generation to generation.
>
>

I just saw a slide rule sighting on the History Channel. The subject
was Howard Hughes Tech. I thought it was rather appropriate when they
showed a slide rule being used to design the electronic missle guidance
system. It looked like a Pickett, but I could not positiviely identify it.



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