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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. Over the past three decades 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.

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  Heinz Joss 1929 - 2019
  Heinz Joss was a member of The Oughtred Society (OS), the Slide Rule Collectors Group (RST), the UK Slide Rule Circle (UKSRC) and the Collector's Club of Historical Office Machines Switzerland (SHBS). All things considered Heinz Joss, who died on May 17th 2019 at the age of almost 90, will probably be best remembered as the Swiss grandmaster of the Worshipful Company of Slide Rule Collectors. Additional information on Heinz Joss's extraordinary life has been provided by Hans Kordetzky.

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  Robert K. Otnes (by Robert De Cesaris)
  Distinguished Slide Rule and Calculating Device Expert, Author, Researcher, and Collector; Oughtred Society Co-Founder, Journal of the Oughtred Society Editor
  
  Robert K. Otnes (Feb 2, 1932 – April 15, 2019)

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• The Oughtred Society 2019 Annual Meeting was held in Las Vegas at the Atomic Testing Museum on April 20, 2019. Once again there were dozens of unique and interesting slide rules for sale at the Oughtred Society annual auction and several interesting presentations. Here is a brief report on the 2019 OS annual meeting.

• International Meeting of Collectors of Historical Calculating Instruments (IM2019) - September 20-22, 2019
  

  The 25th International Meeting of Collectors of Historical Calculating Instruments (IM2019) will be held from September 20th to 22nd, 2019, at the Badhotel in Scheveningen -- the seaside resort of The Hague, which is the government residence of the Netherlands For more information please read the full announcement. (pdf)

  
  

• The IM 2018 meeting was held recently, courtesy of the United Kingdom Slide Rule Circle (UKSRC). Sixty Delegates and Partners from nine nations met in Stratford-upon-Avon. Some 240 slide rules were displayed, and eight talks were given. The meeting report is available here.

• OS Awards and Fellowships: The OS Award Committee has announced the 2018 Hall of Fame winners. The OS Award went to Prof. Dr. Ina Prinz, Prof. Dr. Bernhard Korte, and Richard Smith-Hughes. The 2018 Fellowships went to Paul McConnell and Hans Kordetzky.

• Calling all authors! The Oughtred Society is preparing the 2019 Journal issues, and is looking for some good articles! Contact Journal editor Jim Bready with your proposal, and see The Journal of the Oughtred Society web page for more information and to download the JOS Guidelines for Authors.

• June 16-17, 2018: An SR-71 symposium was held in McMinnville, Oregon at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum. The SR-71 was the last aircraft designed using slide rules.

• Richard Davis has retired as Oughtred Society webmaster. Ace Hoffman has assumed that position as of 2018. In 2019 Ace was voted onto the O.S. B.O.D.. Ace is a computer programmer and published a paper in the Spring 2018 Journal titled The Linear Digital Slide Rule.

• 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.

• 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 five collections featured; items from the collections of Paul Tarantolo, Louis Gotlib, Richard Davis, Cliff Frohlich and Thomas Wyman. All the collections continue to grow under the 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 July 19, 2019