Before the smartphone, the laptop and the pocket calculator, there was a powerful mechanical computer. Our new series, Tools of the Trade, begins... The Slide Rule: A Computing Device That Put A Man ...

Used by engineers for centuries, they were displaced by pocket calculators and all but forgotten until Mr. Shawlee created a subculture of obsessives and cornered the market. By Alex Traub For about ...

While some (math-phobics) still may relish the simple beauty and non-threatening functionality of the abacus, there are those who have made the transition to more challenging computing gadgets—many ...

An early computing device invented by Reverend William Oughtred in London in the 17th century. Primarily for multiplication and division, the slide rule has two stationary sets and one sliding set of ...

For about 350 years, humanity’s most innovative handheld computer was something called a slide rule. As typewriters once symbolized the writer, slide rules symbolized the engineer. These analog ...