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The Oughtred Society was founded in 1991 by a group of slide rule collectors and is dedicated to the preservation and history of slide rules and other calculating instruments. In the past 27 years it has evolved to an international organization with members in 20 countries. It is noted for its highly acclaimed Journal of the Oughtred Society, published twice annually. The Society is a non-profit educational organization. Society goals include the dissemination and sharing of information and encouragement for collectors. We are affiliated with organizations in the United Kingdom, Germany, The Netherlands and Italy. Our activities are carried out by members who volunteer to do various tasks and projects. Membership is open to anyone. Click "Membership" in the left navigation menu for more information about member activities and benefits.

• Many rare and unusual slide rules to be auctioned at the Annual Meeting in Las Vegas on April 21, 2018. As a pair, two blackbody slide rules, a rare Thronton F5100 and a super-rare Blundell F5100 will be included. The latter with only 4 known to be in the hands of collectors and less than 100 ever made. Many Pickett, K&E, Hemmi, Dietzgen, Aristo, Faber, etc. slide rules to be offered at attractive prices! In addition slide rules from the Wyman and Otnes collections will be offered.
  

• Oughtred Society Annual Meeting - April 21, 2018
  

  The Oughtred Society 2018 Annual Meeting will be held in Las Vegas at the Atomic Testing Museum on April 21, 2018. Cost is $45/person (spouse is free). The host hotel is the Four Points by Sheraton Las Vegas East Flamingo across the street from the museum. The OS has a group rate of $99/night for Friday and Saturday nights. The meeting will feature displays of slide rule collections, an auction, buying, selling and swapping, two live presentations and the opportunity to meet and talk with fellow slide rule enthusiasts, many of whom are experts in their areas of interest. Additional items from the Thomas Wyman and Bob Otnes collections will also be offered at the auction. Optional group dinners will be held on Friday and Saturday evenings at the hotel in a private meeting room - food will be catered by Buca di Beppo, Italian Restaurant.

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The main hotel for our April 21, 2018 Oughtred Society meeting will be The Four Points by Sheraton Las Vegas East Flamingo, where we will be holding dinner both nights. After some initial set-up issues, the hotel should be ready to accept reservations now, at the special Oughtred Society rate of $99 per night for Friday and Saturday nights. This rate will be available until March 19, 2017, at 5 PM Nevada time. Note: Cancellations made after March 19 may result in a one night charge! See the meeting announcement for additional nights. Exact instructions from the hotel for obtaining the special $99 rate for the OS are: Dial 702-473-6400, select Reservations (option 1). Say "Booking for Atomic Meeting 2018 at $99 rate".
See Details and Registration. and REGISTER NOW!

New Oughtred Society Board Members The Oughtred Society is pleased to announce that two new members have been appointed to the board of directors: Louis Gotlib and Jim Bready. Louis will also be heading up the Education Committee.

• Free On-Line BOOK: The Oughtred Society is proud to announce the publication of LONG-SCALE SLIDE RULES in LIFE-SIZE IMAGES by Otto E. van Poelje, dedicated to the memory of our Oughtred Society fellow collector & long-scale slide rule connoisseur Edwin Chamberlain (18-10-2017)
  

• NEW BOOK: The Oughtred Society is proud to announce the publication of Specialized Slide Rules for Electronic Engineers. This new publication is a collection of articles about many of the specialized slide rules used in electronic design. This monograph is an extensive collection of articles edited by Richard Smith Hughes. Richard spent his career designing electronic circuits and when retired taught college level circuit design courses. Richard begins this collection with a brief history of electricity including early communication using spark gap technology. Next the various slide rules, with their special scales to calculate inductive reactance, capacitive reactance and resonant frequency, are described in detail. This publication is now available for sale on our website.

• NEW BOOK:The Oughtred Society is proud to announce the publication of The Inventor of the CURTA Calculator an autobiography. This book is the story of the remarkable life of the inventor of this ingenious device, how he started in his father's mechanical office machine company in Vienna, eventually running the company himself, designing the Curta and becoming embroiled in WWII as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp and finally the difficulties of setting up full production after the war in Liechtenstein. Additional material written by the late Tom Wyman and Dr. Robert Otnes is included.

• Possible 2018 EAST Coast Meeting: Discussions are in progress to reestablish a Fall Meeting on the east coast this fall; please contact members Ben Strange or Louis Gotlib with your interest in this meeting.

• Archive of Collections. New Collections added to this Archive. The first collection in this Archive was that of the late Tom Wyman. We now have four collections featured; items from the collections of Paul Tarantolo, Louis Gotlib, Richard Davis, and Thomas Wyman. All four collections continue to grow under the continuing direction and efforts of Clark McCoy, Rod Lovett, Ted Hume and Richard Davis. We invite you to view this new Archive of Collections and consider having us post your collection to the OS website for posterity.

• Slide Rules of the Major Makers. A New feature on the Oughtred Society Web Site: In this new feature we present all slide rules produced by the eight major makers. This information has existed in several web locations but now exists here in one location. This data was gathered over many years by dedicated researchers.
  ♦Post and Hemmi have complete archives with photos and details for all rules
  ♦K&E has a cross reference with details for all rules, plus a partial photo archive.
  ♦Faber-Castell has a list of all rules with limited details, plus a partial photo archive.
  ♦Dennert & Pape/Aristo have a list of all rules with limited details, plus a partial photo archive.
  ♦Pickett has a cross reference with details for all rules.
  ♦Dietzgen has a cross reference with details for all rules, plus a dateline matrix.
  ♦Nestler has a list of all rules with limited details.

• Pencil Slide Rules: A new publication introduced earlier in the year by the Oughtred Society: Pencil Slide Rules and their Successors, The Calculator Pen and Pentop Computers is a collection of articles that admirably covers this subject! This monograph is authored and edited by one of our Oughtred Society founders, Rodger Shepherd. This publication is now available for sale on our website.

• JOS DVD is available for sale, containing 26 years of the Journal of the Oughtred Society in PDF format. OS members and non-members(individuals and institutions) may purchase the DVD by going to the Journal page and paying for the disk via Paypal.

• A Search Facility for the Journal of The Oughtred Society awaits your use.
  (See Journal Search in main menu at left.) This new Search Facility displays high resolution PDFs of Journal articles. You may search by several methods -- author, title, keyword, or for any word that appears in any article, or for all articles in a given year, etc.The search facility was created by Rod Lovett.

• Request for Articles for the 2019 and 2020 Journals. Be a contributing author and share your knowledge and interests. For ideas and inspiration, read "Yes, You Can Write for the Journal of the Oughtred Society" (82KB pdf).
• Current Journal of the Oughtred Society
  
  Cover                              Table Of Contents                   Sample Page


• Sample Articles from the Journal of the Oughtred Society. The Oughtred Society is pleased to present seven articles from past issues of the Journal. See NEWS ARCHIVES.
  • JOS 21.2 p8-15: Chemistry Slide Rules - Their history and Use, by Louis Gotlib
  • JOS 21.1 p67-68 Aviation Novelty Slide Rules, by Clay Castleberry
  • JOS 20.2 p49-51 Eels and a Joint Slide Rule, by Colin Barnes
  • JOS 20.1 p57-62 Building a Thacher by Bob Wolfson
  • JOS 20.1 p5-6 Colorful Slide Rules by Otto E. van Poelje
  • JOS 19.2 p28-31 Magnifiers by Bob Koppany
  • JOS 19.1 p29 Early Cooperation between A.W. Faber and Dietzgen by Peter Holland
• JOS Plus is the website location where supplemental material appears for articles in the Journal of the Oughtred Society. View these supplemental materials by going to JOS Plus.
• NEWS ARCHIVES - Past announcements and news.

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last modified April 01, 2018