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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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• “Virtual IM2021” The 27th International Meeting of Collectors and Researchers of Slide Rules and other Historic Computing Instruments

  (IM2021 for short) was held -- to great success and lots of fun -- on September 11th and 12th, 2021 as a "Zoom" online conference. OS president Robert G de Cesaris was one of the speakers (Session IV: Log tables)!

  Many thanks to Karl Kleine for his dedication and effort in pulling together this wonderful program!

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• Book review by Michael Konshak:

  Book Review of Volume 1 of the 24+ intended volumes (14 currently available), about each major manufacturer of slide rules. The volumes are available on Amazon ($27.95 per hardback or $19.95 per paperback). A portion of each sale is donated to the ISRM (International Slide Rule Museum). Each volume is ~550 printed pages.

  Reviewer Michael Konshak is a retired mechanical engineer and the curator of the International Slide Rule Museum since 2003. He is preserving the 50- to 100-year-old slide rule manuals in the Slide Rule Instruction Library Series. Michael has been a long-time contributor to the Oughtred Society.

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• Oughtred Society 2021 Annual Meeting May 15

  Videos now available!

  Our Oughtred Society’s Annual Meeting, held virtually via Zoom on 15 May 2021 from 9AM to 1PM PDT, was a terrific success with over 40 attendees! All OS members were invited; the meeting featured several presentations, an auction, and of course our Annual Meeting.

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• The new edition of the Journal of the Oughtred Society is out! (See below for sample page and TOC images!)
  
  

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• Calling all authors! The Oughtred Society is preparing the 2021 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.

• 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)
  

• The Oughtred Society is proud to publish 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.

• 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 2021 and 2022 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 September 12, 2021