Significant digits in a float?

[Mark H Harris]

On 4/30/14 7:02 PM, Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
>>> Sterling?  Snort.  K&E was the way to go.

    Absolutely, snort.  I still have my K&E (Keuffel & Esser Co. N.Y.); 
made of wood... (when ships were wood, and men were steel, and sheep ran 
scared) ... to get to the S L T scales I have to pull the slide out 
(turn it over) and reinsert it. You're right, the CF and DF scales are 
missing, but the A B scales have the π symbol where it should be (more 
or less).  Mine is the 4058 C model, and you're right... has maths 
equivalents and conversions printed on the back...

> 	I've misplaced the Sterling, but I'm fairly sure it was a deci-trig
> log-log model.

    My high school '74 was the last class to learn the slide-rule using 
the Sterling (we paid a deposit to use the school's). I returned my 
Sterling to the teacher at year-end and got my deposit back. They are 
all probably in an old card-board box in the basement. I should ask.

>
> 	In the last 15-20 years I've added NIB versions of Faber-Castell 1/54
> Darmstadt, Pickett N-803-ES Dual-Base Log-Log, Pickett Cleveland Institute
> of Electronics N-515-T, and a pair of Sama&Etani/Concise circular pocket
> rules (models 200 and 600).

    I received my Pickett Model N4-T Vector-Type Log Log Dual-Base Speed 
Rule as a graduation | birthday gift... off to college with a leather 
cased slip stick hanging from my belt (I was invincable).  Mine had the 
CF/m DF/m scales also -- folded at 2.3, the loge of 10 with π where it 
should be (more or less).  Copyright 1959... that baby was the king of 
slide rules...  I pull it out from time to time, just for warm feelings.

>
> 	Heh... I wonder if the VEs would have noticed the CIE rule had lots of
> electronics formulas on the back, if I'd taken it to the exam session where
> I passed both General and Amateur Extra tests. I couldn't take a calculator
> -- all of mine were programmable. But the slide-rule I took was just about
> as perplexing to the VEs.
>

    I carried my slide rule to my general class exam as well. The VE 
inspected it to be sure that certain stuff was not written in pencil 
between the scales! True story. Its not required today, of course, but I 
can still send/receive at 20 wpm. <sigh>

marcus   W0MHH
'73