IBM 610 workstation computer 3366

From time to time I do a dog-and-pony show for high-school math clbuttes about the early days of computers, and one of the ways I start the presentations is to show three slide rules: a 6" pocket K&E that I bought while I was in high school (which I describe as the minicomputer of its day), a standard 12" slipstick that my mother used in grad school (chemistry) in the 1920s and which I describe as a "regular" computer, and a 30" job (the "supercomputer") which my father had for some reason I don't understand.

(The reference to my father is from the fact that he detested slide rules, and refused to let students in his graduate clbuttes use them. While I didn't agree with him then and still don't think that his position was really justified, his concern was that in nuclear physics you do NOT want to risk losing track of the decimal point...)

But while the 6" pocket slide rule was convenient, my favorite was a 10" circular slide rule which I bought while in junior high and which served me well through grad school, offering both faster operation and higher accuracy than a standard slipstick. I don't take it to the dog-and- pony shows since over the years the plastic cursor has attacked the paint on the disk and I don't want to risk having the markings flaked off.

Joe Morris