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Re: [LUG] 20130201 reliable computing

 

On Sun, 3 Feb 2013, Philip Whateley wrote:

On 03/02/13 15:07, Gordon Henderson wrote:
On Sun, 3 Feb 2013, Peter Lloyd-Jones wrote:

On 1 February 2013 17:15, e-mail greybear2k5
<greybear2k5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

I have a 40 year old working analogue computer, results are not too
precise but near enough for many uses.
It's called a slide rule.

Hi Jimbo

But  they never managed to solve the floating decimal point problem!

I don't recall floating point being a problem when I've used slide
rules. The knack is to be able to work out the right magnitude of the
result in your head then work from there.

So - Pi * 724 is going to be 2 thousand and something, so about 2270
on the slide rule: http://unicorn.drogon.net/slide.jpg

Hm. It's a bit grubby. Maybe I ought to clean it up a bit.

Gordon

Oooh! I remember British Thornton.

I've got an AD 150 I used at school....really fancied one of the
cylindrical ones though.

Cylindrical? They're really (really!) old ... Not circular?

The only circular one I have is from my flying days:

http://unicorn.drogon.net/circ.jpg

Not a calculator as such, but more for doing stuff you need for flying -
e.g. various fuel density calculations, distances, temperatures, etc.

What I really want is a curta calculator...

Gordon




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