Walter Shawlee, the Sovereign of Slide Rules, Is Dead at 73

DNYUZ ^ | February 8, 2024 | N/A

[dagunk]

Have a small collection here. K&E Decillon 68-1100, A few Post 1460 and 1461 rules, Dietzgens, Hemmis, Picketts. I keep a Teledyne Post 44CA-600 or Post 1460 out on the desk and still use them. Pull out a Hemmi 260 on occasion. They make you think about what you’re doing.

Sad to see Mr. Shawlee go.

The International Slide Rule Museum has a huge collection and a lot of duplicates are for sale. Mr. Mike Konshak is the curator. I expect Mr. Konshak and Mr. Shawlee knew each other.

I also have an operational HP41CX. Best calculator ever made in my not so humble opinion. /grin/

[ProtectOurFreedom]

That looks like the one that got me my ME degree in '73. I mainly used it for multiplication and division plus some trig. Never really mastered other scales. I always had "Machinery's Handbook" nearby for all the tables I needed.

My Opa was an outstanding engineer (he got a patent for the tech that made an elevator stop at the right floor which eventually led to the demise of elevator operators!) and he had a full collection of "Ingenious Mechanisms for Designers and Inventors" in his basement. I spent hours as a teen going through those wonderful books trying to figure out how those incredible mechanisms worked. Most of those mechanisms for complex motion are now replaced by digital electronics and control systems. Kinematics just isn't what it used to be.

[Fester Chugabrew]

I am *badly* math challenged, but have a good slide rule somewhere. I don’t have an abacus yet, but hope to get one. Have studied Greek and Hebrew and am challenged by those, too. Just a plebe. A Spartan.

So much to be thankful for, but especially thankful for a mind that is capable. Now if I could just use it!

[guest7]

"...I respect anyone who makes old tech sing..."

High Speed "Slip-stick".

[KarlInOhio]

Let’s see, low speed side for 40 to 270 knots, high speed for 200 knots to warp 10.

[Red Badger]

I had one.......

I was in a thrift shop this morning and they had 3 or 4 in the display case..................

[IndispensableDestiny]

I had a Keuffel and Esser ivorite body slide rule in high school, class of 1978. The slide box spring broke so I fixed it with a bobby pin. Calculators emerged while in HS. My first one was a simple TI. then I got a TI SR-51. In college I designed a chemical plant using a TI-59.

[Fester Chugabrew]

That is so cool!

I find myself a bit jealous of guys who can figure stuff out like this. If I spent just a few hours with you and the books you imbibed back in the day, I would have more questions than answers, yet still be edified.

[linMcHlp]

bttt

[Jamestown1630]

My math teacher, who introduced us to slide rules in the late ‘60s, had naked ladies printed on the underside of his necktie.

He liked flipping it up and showing it to us. Rather distracting...

[Fester Chugabrew]

Kodachrome!

[Fester Chugabrew]

Slide rule gets the curves.

[Tucker39]

Yep. Private pilots had the circular one, the “E6B”(?) for flight planning, along with our logbook and Sectional Charts.

[Jamestown1630]

LOL!

(I wonder if they still make neckties like that...)

[Responsibility2nd]

“When I think back on all the Crap I learned in high school...”

[MayflowerMadam]

I used K&E equipment in my first job in a city chartography department. Had forgotten all about it until I saw your post.

[KarlInOhio]

Web archive moonstick

I have a Moonstick, which is a six segment slide rule for calculating moon phases from about 6000 BC to 10000 AD.

Unfortunately it looks like the website is down so I had to link to a web archive version.

[T.B. Yoits]

They're still in use:

https://www.mypilotstore.com/MyPilotStore/sep/2233?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=bing-shopping&msclkid=367319f1ab271ab782bb7c2b1ccd1a05

[fella]

Dad was a DOD engineer, he had a large collection of slide-rules and mechanical calculators. I remember he spent big bucks on an early T.I. hand held calculator just before he retired.

[Seaplaner]

I still have 3 slide rules from my college days (2 Picketts) one pocket model and one w log log functions. One more, if you count aviation flight computers.

I strongly suspect that those who today have difficulty with logarithm and powers of ten math operations have never needed to employ a slide rule in a chemistry or physics mid term.