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Comment by zabzonk | Hacker News Reader

When I was in school in the late 60s a slide-rule company gave a special offer to us, which all of our parents (wanting us to succeed in the bright technological future) duly bought into. As far as I know, none of us ever actually used them, preferring paper log tables.

We were also taught how to use mechanical adding machines, possibly the last people to be lumbered with this information, which mercifully I have completely forgotten.

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I was probably the last generation in the US in the 1970s to willingly learn slide rules - the HP-35 had been out a few years and new scientific calculators already made the demise of slide rules pretty obvious to even us nerdlets.

One of my prized inheritances from my engineer father is his slide rule (complete with leather case).

I have a few slide rules at this point, including a Hemmi 200 "Made in Occupied Japan"

https://www.sliderulemuseum.com/Hemmi.htm

Thanks for the link. I've just seen my Sun Hemmi No. 130 System Darmstadt (which I'm looking at now and that I mentioned in my earlier post). It's still in excellent condition except the glass in the cursor has a crack in it).

In our high school physics class in early 80s, the teacher didn't care for calculators, so you'd have to do your calculations by hand, or learn to use a slide rule. I learned to use a slide rule, along with a buddy. I don't remember others in the class using slide rules, but looking back now, I have a hard time believing everybody else used pencil & paper. So there were probably others.

I think that teacher didn't retire for another 20 years, so he may have had kids in the 21st century still learning to use slide rules for his class.

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