Show and/or tell your obsolete science/engineering accoutrements

[Multicore]

The other day I had to explain to someone the difference between graph paper and a simple 5x5mm grid, as is common in notebooks. Then I had a nostalgic moment thinking about graph paper and the cost and complexity log graph paper (how many decades do you need?) or, worse still, log-log paper. Then I started to wonder about all the science and engineering accoutrements I no longer have, the technical pens, pencils, stencils, angles, curves and rules. And then I remembered the log tables I haven't seen for years. I even vaguely recall throwing out my Abramowitz and Stegun.

All I have left of these accoutrements of the art is my CASIO fx-115D. My dad (high-performance hydraulics) was TI-59 man although there was still a slide-rule on his desk. My uncle John (neutron diffraction) used HP but I don't recall what models. My mum (mathematician and computer wizz) wasn't fussy about calculators since she knew FORTRAN and how to use the NAG library.

So I figured maybe it would be nice if you shared photos and/or stories of your own obsolete science and/or engineering accoutrements. I wouldn't be surprised is someone here has a 1960s cyclotron or an 80s SEM they rescued from a lab and play with at xmas with the grandkids as a family tradition. Anyway, here's my fx-115D.

 

[egellings]

Still have and use my Hewlett Packard HP-35 calculator, which uses the RPN arithmetic technique. Was able to cobble together a replacement rechargeable NiMH battery pack for it, too. Still have and occasionally use my Versa Log slide rule, just for the fun of it, too.

 

[lucian]

This one supports symbolic algebra - helped me through lot of tests - since the profs didn't know about that capability.

 

[GeorgeWalk]

This is hanging on the wall in my "Ham Cave".

 

[Mnyb]

I’m out of competition moved to many times throwed everything away ( including HP calculator ) , but ive remember my steam table in book form from my thermodynamics class more boring than the phone book !

 

[mhardy6647]

This is hanging on the wall in my "Ham Cave". View attachment 492839

My high school chemistry & physics teacher, Mr. Ted Henn, had one of those monsters hanging on the front of the demonstration table in his classroom. He was probably the best teacher I had in secondary school. One will note that I did become a scientist, albeit neither a chemist nor a physicist.
He passed away in 2024.


Ted Henn 1975 yearbook photo scan 06Feb24 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

Said slide rule is barely visible in the photo above (bottom right-ish).

 

[Multicore]

steam table

Steam tables! Yes!

Now here is a word I still enjoy: psychrometrics.

 

[mhardy6647]

Speaking of Mr. Henn... he had a small Sama & Etani circular slide rule that he always carried around in his shirt pocket. It was in a grey vinyl pouch with the slogan Physics is Phun printed on it in silver. Stuff like that makes an impression on... well... and impressionable youth.
They sold those slide rules in our school store, albeit in a red pouch sans slogan. The cool thing about it was that it had a slot containing a plastic card containing (as I like to say) all of mankind's knowledge (formulae, constants... all sorts of stuff) printed on it.
I lost the slide rule somewhere along the way.
Years later, our son (who is a mathematician, FWIW) got a replacement for me via eBAY.
This is a rando web image of one, but it's identical (mine is actually in better condition) and I am too lazy to find a photo of my own... much less to go upstairs and take another photo of it!

So, in a bizarre, synchronicitous coincidence, Sama & Etani was located in Groton, Massachusetts. Many years after I acquired my circular slide rule, I ended up living in Harvard, MA, which is one town away from Groton in the deep NW suburbs of Boston. Odd but true.

 

[Multicore]

Years later, our son (who is a mathematician, FWIW) got a replacement for me via eBAY.

That was a very nice thing to do.

Sama & Etani was located in Groton, Massachusetts ... I ended up living in Harvard

I have visited both very often. They each have a useful services for refueling and coffee on long bike rides from Boston.

And, btw, I approve of these older periodic tables that have what amounts to "..." for synthetic "elements".

 

[Multicore]

This is hanging on the wall in my "Ham Cave". View attachment 492839

My first reaction was, "what on earth... that's enormous". Then mhardy demonstrated for what that is useful. Now I want to know if it comes with a locking mechanism to simplify hanging it vertically from a nail on the wall.

 

[Somafunk]

I’m out of competition moved to many times throwed everything away ( including HP calculator ) , but ive remember my steam table in book form from my thermodynamics class more boring than the phone book !

Two pages of mind numbing equations and formulas to discover “steam is wet”

3 years of such, I picked the wrong course at college/uni, I should have chose “interpretive dance” or something that only needed 1 day attendance a week rather than 5days with mech engineering followed by sat/sun attempting to get your head round the clusterfuck of scribbles in your notes

 

[mhardy6647]

That's a was very nice thing to do.


I have visited both very often. They each have a useful services for refueling and coffee on long bike rides from Boston.

Yes and for those of us who are lazy cyclists -- there's a nice, flat rail trail that starts in the center of Ayer. Used to ride out to Nashua regularly - and back, of course - in the '90s and aughts (or is that naughts).

Yes our son is a good lad.

 

[dualazmak]

Ref. my post #983 on my project thread...

 

[Multicore]

I wonder if is still have my ICE Milano multimeter. It's possible. Dunno where to look.

 

[mhardy6647]

Gotta nice Simpson 260 here.



Then there's this...

 

[Doodski]

Gotta nice Simpson 260 here.



Then there's this...

They are beautiful and that Simpson especially is fabulous. When I was first starting out in electronics repair I needed test calibration gear and could not afford new gear and all the catalogue power supplies failed after 1-3 years etc and I wanted something more. I picked up the phone and started making random cold calls and found a guy with a electronics R&D lab. He went through many many pieces of gear as his R&D operations evolved. So he invited me over to a meet and greet at his lab in a government subsidized new building made for budding technology companies that needed a good front facade and affordable overhead. His place was in a great new modern snazzy building, had a big industrial elevator so they all could use it for forklift pallets and heavy loads and it was a shiny silver metal covered beautiful building with huge fish that would eat from one's hand at the outside pond. Anyway... He had stacks and stacks and stacks of gear all calibrated by himself and serviced ready for operation in a electronics lab. He was able to afford his personal lab by driving to USA auctions all over the USA for major aerospace and other huge corporations that would flog the old gear at as I found out absurdly low prices and sometimes they sold it by weight plastic wrapped on pallets and one never knew what they where getting but he told me all of them had surprises and some good stuff. So when he needed a ~$250,000 piece of calibration lab gear he would find it, bring it back to his lab, fix it, make it pretty and calibrate it. That's how he build his very cool lab console which was very large. So I was seeing all the gear from vintage to near new, from $50 to 1/4 million each etc. It was all there. I was able to buy the best of the best industrial calibration gear brands and the best of their models too. I saw all the stuff like you pictured. Anyway.. he liked and trusted me and knew I was an avid electronics guy like him and he offered me a part time job taking up the slack for him around the shop doing whatever came along. So I did that and learned heaps and saw all the gear and it was wonderful. He was told he had to leave the building because he was exceeding the allowable engineered building floor loads. Then he saved up, had better credit and bought a commercial/industrial strata type space for his new location, moved in and then filled it with more gear from the USA. I was frantic buying the best of the best most perfect examples of my favorites and filled my lab and he made his lab and his console was like 35 feet long and 6 feet high and also had side racks of high voltage calibration gear and pallet size blocks of AC mains smoothing filtering protection gear and all the jazz a proper calibration lab needs for serious accurate calibration. He would have dozens of that Simpson model meter you pictured, dozens of each model of HP scopes and power supplies and Tektronix in all the models and options etc. It was freaking great. A total wonderland of vintage test gear all the way to modern gear. Multiple hundreds of models at a time with many of each. Some of the gear that is/was out there was basically art with gauges, dials, meters, knobs etc. Beautiful design and beautiful materials used with the best of finishes etc. Wonderful stuff.

 

[amirm]

The thing I was most proud of was this Sharp calculator which I have some place:

It was so a far ahead of its time and so useful. You could enter formulas with parenthesis and such without learning the obscure key sequences of ordinary calculators.

Turned it on a couple of years ago and part of the display had gone black. But the rest worked after some 4 decades!!!

 

[mglobe]

I have a Globe-Hilsenrath Azimuth computer, invented by my father Sam Globe and his friend Bob Hilsenrath.

Globe-Hilsenrath Azimuth Computer

 

[Petrushka]

Ref. my post #983 on my project thread...
View attachment 492928

I just. Recently bought a Sanwa. It’s my only meter. A thing of beauty.

Back in the early 80s I programmed the calcs for mortgage payments. There were slightly different procedures for FHA, VA, and conventional, and the results differed by a few cents per payment. I sanity checked my program using an HP-80.

I also had a Pickett slide rule for high school Trig.

Update: to the best of my knowledge, no one ever did a deep test of my calculations, and I’d estimate they set the payments for more than a hundred million mortgages. To be fair, the exact amount of the payment, give or take a dollar, only affects the final payment.

 

[dualazmak]

I just. Recently bought a Sanwa. It’s my only meter. A thing of beauty.
....
....

Yes, Sanwa still has product lineup of beautiful analog multimeters;
https://overseas.sanwa-meter.co.jp/products/analog_multitester/index.html