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Own a Little Bit of Berkeley Physics History
Five foot slide rules? Brass and Wood balances? Bakelite Metering Equipment. This and more are up on the block as a result of UC Berkeley's physics department wanting to clear out old gear (they need the room). The San Francisco Chronicle has a story about auction. Apparantly, about 20 items will be auctioned in a "test the waters" sales this Sunday,
and the balance of the 1000 pieces will be sold July 28th...
I was just thinking how much i wanted to learn how to use a slide rule.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
I got dibs on the Six tubes of assorted Tinker Toys. Haven't played with those in ages.
When they start selling the stuff owned and used by the nobel prize owners, then I'll pull out my wallet
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Will the good folks at Berkeley be accepting auction bids in grams of pot, or is there actual money involved?
Thanks.
Aw, fuck it. Let's go bowling. - The Big Lebowski
Why did they have a five foot slide rule? Such an item would be utterly pointless.
The only advantage that slide rules have over log tables is the speed with which they can be used, but a five foot slide rule would be far too cumbersome for easy use anyway.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
That's so strange this story appeared right after solidblue software released their 'slide rule' program as a joke.
You should check out their site, the slide ruler software is funny (if you're a total nerd) ; their page talks about how, "Strangely as we've evolved from the abicus, [...] eventually the slide ruler, and finally the computer -- we see model abicus's in peoples houses and offices, and computers are everywhere -- yet the slide-ruler seems to have lost some fame. We feel it needs to be brought back, and what better medium than through the computer."
... it's really funny, I'm not doing it justice.
sorry,
Ace
This is great... but I believe LSD loses its potency after sitting around in those dusty basements for so long...
Maybe I can find an already built potato cannon for sale :)
I sure prefer science-related antiques to crumbly old chairs, tables, lamps, etc. When cleaning out my great-grandparents' home after they both had died we discovered some cool wooden globes. Even one of those solar system model thingamajigs, with wooden planets and iron gears, where you turn the handle and the planets spin and rotate around the sun, the moons orbit the planets, etc.
The chairs, tables, lamps, etc. went to goodwill. My parent's kept the solar system.
At my school, they just throw out all their old stuff. We've found all kinds of great stuff, from a (working) LCD projector to all kinds of lab equipment, Old function generators, power supplies, an optical pyrometer, night vision lens, and more.
There's a dumpster find almost every night or two.
Seriously.. what do they do and what are they for?.. alot of older geeks seem to like em.
It'd be so heartwarming to mod you down to -5.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Someone at Harvey Clar's had a bit of auction on the brain when entering this one.
:)
1071 Wood cased resistance selector, probably 1930's and a Bakelite cased relistance selector, probably 1940's
Note that 'L' and 'S' aren't even remotely close to one another on the keyboard.
LEXX
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
UC Berkeley is clueless. They are selling a treasure!
In contract, check out this university's Scientific Instrument Museum.
OK, it's really just a few display cases, but the online exhibit is extensive.
Kear Lsalgkot Reaker, ,an't uell left from right.
Re, 'L' and 'S' aren't even remotely close to one another on the keyboard.
Lure they are. They're e.actly oqqosite each other, ohich makes them conceptually equivasent to the qart of your brain that
--ti.mg;vmg;v
--my pop is a retired mainframe pigiron guy. grew up with chunks of mainframes and whopper "maps" on the kitchen table, plus he always had a small radio/tv/whatever shop in the basement.
he's still got a patio table he made out of a 3 foot across plexiglass looking platter that was the "hard drive" disk from some old machine. I don't really remember accurately, but I think he told me it was ten megs, costed like 10 g's or something way back, maybe 100g's, some huge number.
He used to take me to where he worked once in a great while, MAN O MAN did the pooter companies back then sell BLINKENLIGHTS crap to the customers! Whatta scam! hahahaha! They had like motorized hydraulic doors when all you needed was like a "door" with a handle on hinges, stuff like that. All kinza lights. I woulda "got into" pooters much earlier, but I'm color blind and back then to do any hardware/electronics you needed A-1 color vison, so there ya go, I didn't, even though I really tried hard. Whizzes me off to this day, oh well...I can build regular boxen now, it's no large feat anymore.
yep, I had a slide rule. We had the first TV on the block, too,, dinky tiny. I still have one of his old leather tech tool boxes,too.
I do know a few times joe goobermint woke him up middle of the night on the phone, he has to boogie, and he gets the royal treatment flying off to some seekrit gov install someplace that he can't talk about. cold war action. whizzbang stuff. He worked for RCA, big blue for a spell, sperry and burroughs. He said he liked rca's pooters the best, why I don't know, I was a kid then. I do remember getting to use the teletype terminal and typing some crap to someone across the country in the early 60's, that was cool. Usually he could sneek me in to putter around if he had midnight shift in the summer during school break, ie, "no bosses around then". Big ole weird looking monitors. Printers the size of volkswagens. Stacks of punch cards, streaming tape reels on racks that raised up and down outta nifty looking boxen. neat-ass stuff, tell ya whut. Enough juice to run any normal small city. Sub floors with enough wire to get to the moon and back, enough air condo to cool off--well,, A LOT, that's how much!
I am still in awe of his tech ability, he's a geezer mad inventor crank now, still a hoot. He built a solar water heater for our swimming pool in the 60's, stuff like that. Built his own electronic ignition system for the family wagon. It started MUCH better in the winter after that, I remember all the stuff was built into a maxwell house coffee can. He taught me to use a 'scope, stuff like that.
He'd probably like this museum.
Aside from nostalgic Berkley physics major alumni, a great idea would be for some udnerfunded school districts to pick up some of this stuff. I'm not a physics teacher, but I'd imagine a good quantity of it would be great for the high school level.
"Moderate drinking can help prevent amputated limbs" -- Abigail Zuger, NYTimes, 12/31/02
Remember now -- this is the age before computers; i am certain this slide rule -- like all the other rediculous liquid-nitrogen cooled P4 reaching three and a half GHz -- is a compensatory device for... erm... certain shortcomings.
if you don't believe me on the "shortcoming" part -- ancidotal (sp?) evidence: Newton died a virgin.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Is this at the auction house place (on telegraph ave.) or some place on the Berkely Campus?
Thx.
S
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I'm a UCB physics grad student. The primary motivation for the sale isn't to make money or make room for new gear. They actually have to do it because the part of the physics building is scheduled for a seismic retrofit, and the temporary building can't accommodate all the old stuff in the attics.
Some material will be kept for display and for gifts to retiring faculty.
But do you really want to learn how to use a slide rule on a 5 foot slide rule. Kind of big don't you think?
It's for those who found smaller slide rules not enough of a challenge.
'L' is right above 'S' on a dvorak keyboard.
Yes, I know, Berkeley really is an old school but still... using a local auctioneer?
Had they used Ebay, the entire world could have bid which would have maximized the price Cal fetched for the equipment. And just perhaps, by posting pictures on Ebay, some of the equipment might have been identified that even their "ace in the hole, Shugart" couldn't identify.
Strange call on Cal's part. Then again, this is Berkeley we're talking about.
There will be at least one person who goes to the auction and says:
Brass and wooden balances? I thought it said Bras and wooden balances....
Now, sometimes large slide rules were made for doing precise calculations -- for example some used in navigation. These are quite interesting and worth collecting. However, the giant classroom slide rules are not particularly precisely made. They're just big so that the class can follow the calculations the teacher was making.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I often helped out the physics lab department in high school(just a few years ago.) Our main concern was always finding space for all the equipment that gets used throughout the year. I remember one time, we threw away several boxes full of really old stuff, and by really old i mean 1900-1930. I managed to identify a few ammeters and galvanometers, but looking up the items at our favorite auction site showed no bids at all. I believe you can purchase replicas from specialty stores for very little money.
Forget it! Its missing the cursor-hairline! Building one would be a real pain.
Also its very basic. It only has scales A through D. At least it has C & D. Can do some items with it. IE it equal to a basic 4 function calculator.
Down further is a "regular" Slide rule.