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I'm really interested in reading these manuals. Do you recall what were they for?


For the former I unfortunately cannot find a copy and I don't have the calculator any more... my hazy recollection is that it was a Panasonic printing desk calculator I bought at Staples but that could be wrong. Fwiw the newer desk calculators seem to all have pretty bad keypads so if you want a calculator that's really comfortable to use for fast totaling you might want to get a "vintage" one from when they were using mechanical key switches. Part of the reason I got rid of the one I had is because I was having issues with it not always registering keypresses when I thought it would have.

As for the slide rule, I believe it was a Pickett booklet, likely one of the ones that have fortunately been archived here: https://www.sliderulemuseum.com/SR_Library_Pickett.htm

The Asimov slide rule book is also very good and I have a copy. I believe I inherited it, along with several slide rules, from my grandfather who had been an EE at the NIST and also fastidiously kept a lot of things he had bought for grad school. One of the slide rules has "US Government Property" silkscreened on with the scales which is fairly neat, I assume DoD or someone had had a large number made on contract like they used to do with office supplies. I also have a US Government Property set of drafting tools that I use when hand-drafting sewing patterns.


I had a similar experience with slide rule books I checked out from the public library in the 1970s. Looking on Amazon now, I see 'An Easy Introduction to the Slide Rule' by none other than Issac Asimov. It's entirely possible that this is the book I used, and I think it might fit your bill.




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