Between 1963 and 1965, I had a good paper route (i.e. a set of customers to which I delivered newspapers each morning before school). I found myself flush with cash. I can’t remember exactly, but I think I was paid around $7 per week.

I bought four things with this fortune: a bike, a tennis racket, swim fins, and a fancy Pickett slide rule. I sill have the slide rule with its belt holster, it sits in my office next to my desk, a memento of my early interest in math and science.

I used the bright yellow slide rule along with my abacus a couple years later as a prop in a public speaking class to explain the difference between analog and digital computers. In high school, we are expected to use slide rules for chemistry and physics classes.

My trusty yellow slip stick also accompanied me to MIT where everyone used them. They were ubiquitous. I even had friends that owned circular slide rules. In that time, when only institutions could afford electronic computer, there were even cylindrical slide rules; their helical scales being long enough to obtain a fourth digit of precision.

I needed the slide rule one more time around 1988: it was for a popular Halloween party regularly hosted by a coworker at IBM. My costume was a taped together pair of heavy framed glasses, a shirt buttoned to the top, high water pants, pocket protector full of colored pens, and my well worn slide rule holster hanging from my belt. I saw L.L., an IBM Fellow, there and he said, “Hi Todd, didn’t you realize this is a costume party.”