Slide Rule Museum

[mmcirvin]

By the way, the Slide Rule Museum I linked to earlier is well worth poking around, even if the Nineties-vintage frame layout makes it less than ideal to navigate. The front page links to a Virtual Slide Rule you can use to simulate an analog computing device using Internet-enabled digital hardware.

For some reason, this page of special-purpose slide charts and cardboard calculators makes me unreasonably happy.

Comments

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

You may be interested in Alex Green and his account "A Physicist with the Air Force in World War II."

From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <higg...@fnal.gov>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Slide Rules Go to War
Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 12:53:19 -0500
Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Message-ID: <pine.sgi.4.31.0108081229130.4072413-100000@fsgi01.fnal.gov>

The August issue of *Physics Today* has just landed on my desk, and in it I
found an article by Prof. Alex Green of the University of Florida: "A
Physicist with the Air Force in World War II."

Green served with the U.S. Army Air Force as an operations analyst, first
in the China-Burma-India theater, then in the Pacific
theater.  He wound up creating a number of specialized slide rules
for B-29 crews to use.

One device allowed reconnaisance crews, using their gunsights, to estimate
accurately the size of Japanese ships they observed, which pleased their
Navy liason.  Another enabled flight engineers to predict fuel consumption
at various settings of the flight controls, replacing a thick binder of
test-data lookup tables.  Others helped calculate bomb and fuel loads for
given ranges, or "fake" bombsight settings to use a visible reference to
bomb a target obscured by smoke or cloud.  A couple of them are pictured in
the magazine.

Writes Green:

"Requests for special slide rules grew.  To respond quickly, I set up a
paperwork-free design and production service.  Our streamlined procedures
took advantage of the fact that officers had a monthly liquor allowance but
enlisted men did not.  To secure a special slide rule, the requesting
officer would pay with two bottles. I would pass these contributions along
to the enlisted members of the 949th Topographical Company, who did the
drafting, calculations, and reproductions. Somehow our service enjoyed a de
facto priority second only to the production of mission maps."

[...] "My 21st Bomber Command slide rules 'computerized' what was probably
the highest-technology combat operation of World War II."

Worth a look if you're interested in specialized computing devices.

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     |       |   Bill Higgins   Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
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[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I think I saw the rules from that page on the Museum site.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Antiquark actually has several virtual slide rules (http://www.antiquark.com/sliderule/sim/), all based on actual Pickett models and implemented in JavaScript.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...And here's one with a digital readout (http://www.stefanv.com/calculators/aristo970/index.html) of all the scales under the cursor!