|
Slide Rule
The Slide Rule was invented by William Oughtred in 1625. The
slide rule is based on Napier's ideas about logarithms - it has
logarithmic scales that can be slid past each other to allow
approximations to multiplication to be carried out quickly and
easily.
Slide rules were in continual use by scientists and
mathematicians right up until to the introduction of the first
handheld calculator by Hewlett Packard in
1972.
A Brief History of Computing
|
