Help File

The database initially used by this program was created from Ron Manley's data and contained

data from November 1999 to November 2001. I have continued to collect the data from this time.

Until Jan 2002 the data was acquired from U.S. ebay only which is heavily biased towards

American manufacturers. From Jan 2002 until Aug 2002 it was also acquired from U.K. ebay .

(After this date, ebay changed its format yet again and collection from U.K. ebay was discontinued

until March 2003).

German e-bay prices were obtained from Freie Akademie zu Lagado from February 2003 until October 2004.

From November 2004 I have extended the collection of slide rules from ebay.de to include not only rechenschieber

and rechenstab (slide rules) but also rechenscheibe (circular slide rules) and rechenwalze (cylindrical slide rules).

French ebay prices have been collected from French ebay from July 2010.

Sites such as U.K. ebay and German ebay also auction a significant number of slide rules heavily

biased towards non-American manufacturers! However, more and more non-Americans are using U.S. ebay.

Details about the early acquisition of this data may be obtained from Ron's site which also

provides a large amount of very useful statistical information.

A systematic collection of Curta auctions was undertaken from ebay.com only, from May 2008.

This program may be used for very simple or reasonably complex searches.

For very simple searches, only the first field need be used. In general this is not usually

particularly satisfactory. For more complex searches one or more of the remaining fields may be used.

The program allows searches of the complete database matching lines containing one, two or

three specified strings. (Each string may contain spaces). Lines containing an optional specified

string, may be excluded.

The user may also request that only slide rules exceeding a specified price should be displayed

and also (optionally) sold after a specified date.

The following examples should make clear the use of this program:

1. In the first field (String 1) type "hype" without the quotes and click on "Search".

All entries containing the string "hype" are returned from the database.

The search is deliberately not case-sensitive and for ease of use it is

suggested that all input is in lower-case.

Notice that the references to hyperbolic slide rules are returned.

2. Now add "pickett" to the second field (String 2) and click on "Search".

Here we are requesting that only entries containing "hype" AND "pickett" are displayed.

Notice that only the references to hyperbolic pickett rules are returned.

3. Now add "2001" to the third field (String 3) and click on "Search".

Here we are requesting that only entries containing "hype" AND "pickett" AND "2001"

i.e., hyperbolic pickett rules sold in the year 2001 (or costing $2001 or having 2001 bids!)

are displayed.

4. Now click "Clear Form" to reset the fields and in String 1 type "loga" and then click "Search".

Now we get all entries containing the string "loga".

5. Now type "logar" in String 4 and on clicking "Search" notice that we get all references to "loga"

but not to "logarithm", "logarex" etc.

A period, ".", by itself in the first field is special and will display the complete contents

of the database.

The first field is also special in that it recognizes common slide rule alternatives and deals

with them differently to fields two and three. This is now discussed:

(a) "versalog" OR "post" entered in the first field will output all lines containing

"versalog" AND all lines containing "post". (As usual fields two, three and four

may be used to modify this output.)

(b) "hemmi" or "sun" entered in the first field will output all lines containing

"hemmi" and all lines containing "sun".

"faber" and all lines containing "castell" and all lines containing "f-c".

(d) "pickett" or "eckel" in the first field will output all lines containing

"picket" and all lines containing "eckel".

(e) "thacher" or "thatcher" in the first field will output all lines containing

"thacher" and all lines containing "thatcher".

(f) "keuffel" or "keufel" or "esser" or "k&e" or "k & e" or "k+e" or "k + e" or

"k-e" or "k - e" or "k and e" will output all lines containing "keuffel" and

"keufel" and "esser" and "k&e" and "k & e" and "k+e" and "k + e" and "k-e"

and "k - e" and "k and e".

In the (unlikely?) event of a requirement for lines only containing "esser" (say) then

a "." in the first field and "esser" in the second field could be used etc.

It should also be pointed out that any string may be input into any field, not just the

name of a slide rule. Thus, the string, "10-feb-2002" (without the quotes) in the first

field will output all auctions completed on that date.

6. Now let us look at the use of the "Price" field. Notice that its default value is "$0".

This field, therefore, does not normally affect the search since all prices in the database

are greater than $0.

The following are examples of acceptable formats.

120, 120.56, $12, $1234.78

In String 1 type "aristo" and in String 2 type "hype" and click "Search". All rules matching

these two fields are displayed as usual. Now type "100" in String 5 followed by "Search" and

only the above rules selling for more than $100 are displayed.

To look for all rules selling for more than $1000, type "." in the first field and "1000"

in the fifth field.

The prices from American, British, and German e-bay are all in Dollars.

7. Now we will look at the "Date" field. Notice that its default value is "Oct 1999".

The database contains entries from Nov 1999 onwards and therefore this field does not normally

affect the search since all database entries are after this date.

In String 1, type "aristo", in String 2 type "hype" and in String 5 type "100" and observe the output.

Now change String 6 to "Jul 2004" and observe that we only obtain rules after this date.

8. Now we will look at the Radio Buttons. Each line in the database contains a line of the form:

Date of Auction Number of Bids Price Obtained Text

By default the whole line is searched for strings entered in the first four rows of the Search Table.

(Notice that the "Full Line Search" radio button is checked). The search for strings may be restricted

to the Text Field only by clicking the "Text String Only Search" radio button.

This is useful when you wish to search for numeric values. Example, suppose you are interested

in Pickett 7 foot rules. 'Pickett' in the first row and '7' in the second row will (by default)

match all lines containing 'Pickett' and '7' anywhere in the line. Hence all rows containg 'Pickett'

and '7' anywhere in the row (e.g. sold on jan 07 or attracting 7 bids, or sold for $13.78 etc) will

be output. By clicking on the "Text String Only Search" radio button these lines will not appear.

9. From March 2003 prices of completed auctions have been collected from ebay.co.uk. These may

be obtained by selecting the appropriate checkbox at the bottom of the screen. It should be

noted that the prices displayed have been converted from pounds sterling to dollars so that

all prices are in dollars.

10. From February 2003 prices of completed auctions have been collected from ebay.de. These may

be obtained by selecting the appropriate checkbox at the bottom of the screen. It should be

noted that the prices displayed have been converted from euros to dollars so that all prices

are in dollars.

11. In your chosen category you may also obtain the minimum, maximum, and average price

of all articles which attracted bids by selecting "Display Price Statistics".

12. Further, In your chosen category you may also request a bar chart representation of the

maximum price of all articles on a monthly basis from U.S e-bay by selecting

"Display American Price Bar Graph".

13. And, finally, you may request a table of the number of items in your requested

category sold on U.S ebay.

USEFUL HINTS AND MORE ADVANCED HELP

(a) In general, to maximise your success rate use more than the first row.

"aristo trilog" in the first row will match this exact phrase ONLY. It will not match

"aristo 0908 trilog" , etc.

"aristo" in the first row and "trilog" in the second row will match all entries containing

"aristo" and "trilog" anywhere in the row.

(b) As mentioned in 5(b) above, "sun" or "hemmi" in the first row will match all entries

containing "sun" or "hemmi". However, "sun 1447" in the first row will match this exact

phrase ONLY.

Therefore, use "sun" (or, of course, "hemmi") in the first row and "1447" in the second row

to achieve the desired output.

Some characters such as '+', '*' etc which would cause a failure of the search are

trapped with the output of an appropriate message.

Some characters such as ':', '{' are not trapped and give the expected result.

Some characters such as '$', '^' are not trapped and will probably not give the

expected result.

Multiple consecutive characters such as '**' etc. will cause the program to hang.

SUCH CHARACTERS USED ANYWHERE BUT IN THE FIRST CHARACTER POSITION ARE ACCEPTED BUT

THE EFFECT MAY NOT BE AS EXPECTED.

IT IS SAFER NOT TO USE THEM.

(d) JUST OCCASIONALLY THE PROGRAM WILL RETURN "No Matches" WHEN IT IS KNOWN THAT MATCHES MUST

BE PRESENT. THIS IS DUE TO A NON-PRINTABLE CHARACTER PRESENT IN ONE OF THE STRING FIELDS.

CLICK ON "Clear Form" TO REMOVE THE PROBLEM.

(e) The '.' can be used to match ANY single character. Thus "rot.rule" will match both "rotarule" and

"rotorule". It will, of course, also match a word ending in "rot" followed by a word starting with

"rule" separated by a space.

(f) The '|' can be used to request alternatives. Thus, "7|seven" will match a line containing "7" OR

a line containing "seven". Thus the search in (e) above could also be written "rotarule|rotorule".

Care should be taken using the '|'. All characters in the string are significant including

spaces. Thus: "rotarule | rotorule" will match a line containing "rotarule" followed by a space

OR a line containing "rotorule" preceded by a space.

A more complex use would be to put 2/82 in string1 and 12/82|52/82|62/82|2/82n in string4.

(g) The '*' cannot be used to match 'anything'. Thus '97*' will NOT match 97 followed by any sequence

of characters.

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