Toadtorrent Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 Okay...it's a New Year and you've vowed to stop being a wallflowered geek, and get out there in the Land-O-Players. If you want to get in the game...you don't have to be rich, you don't have to be buff and you don't have to dress well. It's all about MIND POWER and dazzling people with your wit and intelligence. How do you do this? Simple...change every aspect of your personality (if required), and amaze them with demonstrations of suaveness and sophistication and a flash of that winning smile. Slides Rules...Yeaaah Baby! Oh...remember there have been great advances in modern dentistry and practicing good personal hygeine doesn't hurt either. If you're looking for pick up lines and high style fashion tips...don't look here. But if you need to increase your confidence and give yourself a sense of purpose...I've got your six, man...and it's all contained in Toad's Guide to the Circular Slide Rule QUESTION: How is using a slide rule going to help me win friends and influence women? ANSWER: With the ammunition contained in this guide you will be able to: Fill lulls in silence with the dulcet tones of your inane and senseless ramblingsAssert yourself as having great dimension beyond your natural good looksAssure them that you have the ability to hunt for and kill your own food and ensure the survival of your clan or tribe ...well...maybe not the latter, but you might have a shot with the first two points. I mean Revenge of the Nerds couldn't be wrong...could it?OVERVIEW There are a few decent slide rule guides circulating on the web. There are some frighteningly passionate slide rule afficianados and collectors out there...crazy. I mean, who would spend their free time researching, reading, writing about and collecting something like slide rules? How about taking pictures, close-up macro shots, making elaborate lighting rigs, complaining about small details like scale alignment, fonts, recessed nature of some of the slides, smoothness of the slide, etc? RWG WIS's are well above that sort of behaviour. And yes...I'm ignoring my family and wife to write this guide so you all better appreciate it. Anyways...here are some of the better guides:Anton's RWG Guide to Using the Slide RuleNavitimer.nethxxp://www.chronomaddox.com/breitling/Instructions/navitimer/navitimer_instructions.htmlWiki's Slide Rule EntryAndrew Davie's Univirtual Slide Rule Emulator...cooool!! Although there are a couple guides on RWG about using the basic slide ruler found on the Navitimers, the inspiration for making another Slide Rule guide is that in researching how to use this fine mechanical device, I found very little information on using the Bentley 6.75 slide rule, and I found no decent guides in existence that used actual watches for the instruction. All guides seemed to use the existing Omega or Breitling drawings which I thought made it a bit difficult to translate to actual usage using the real watch. I'm not going to dive too much into the history of the use of slide rules in watches, but suffice it say, that Breitling markets itself as the first company to use a circular slide rule with a chronograph with the release of the Chronomat in 1942 using the Type 42 circular slide rule design. Type 42 in 1942...coincidence or scandal? To me, this means that other watches likely had circular slide rules...but no other combined the slide rule with the chronograph functions. 1940's Breitling Chronomat If you want some great historical reading on the Chronomat history, check out Altro's Chronomat history on Watchuseek (I stole some of his historical shots for use here): [*]hxxp://forums.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?t=9103 [*]hxxp://forums.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?t=13334 Important notes in this history are that in the 70's Breitling avertising stated: "Are you a specialist in calculations? Designed for industrial or sports timing,enthusiastically recommended by businessmen, the BREITLING CHRONOMAT can do all calculations: multiplication, division, rules of three, interest anddiscount rates, exchange rates, etc...Equipped with logarithmic scales it is the slide rule of the engineer and man of commerce." If that doesn't say "Player"...I don't know what does. See? Slide rule knowledge will help you win favour and influence people. More importantly, the Breitling ad spiel outlines the capabilities of this design which are really quite nifty when you think of what is possible without the use of a computer. 1940's Hollywood Star C 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cornerstone Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 AWESOME guide - thank you!! It's true, chicks love this stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackR Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 thanks for the assist --- armed to party, i am....... going to watch 'Rainman' now.............. very well done...very... kudos!... R- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RWG Technical Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 This couldn't come at a better time. We are having a get together on Saturday night, and although I already have a wonderful GF, this will come in handy when that inevetable lull in the conversation comes up. RWG and it's members continue to raise the bar in quality of everything, even the gen sites don't have anything even near to this quality and caliber of writing: funny, informative, clear, well researched... Even magazines such as HR Watches can't come close to this quality of a technical user article. Well done again, thanks so much. RG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andreww Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 Man, what an awesome tutorial! Obviously this is going to take a bit of time to digest fully, but wow! Finally an explanation of how the Bentley slide rule works! Guys have been looking for this for a long time! Kudos my friend, another stellar effort! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phaedo Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 Toad, this must have taken some time to do! Well done, although I may be roaming the wrong circles when trying to influence beautiful women with my knowledge of the slide rules on my Breitlings - as soon as I start to take about it, they turn to the next guy that says he has $20 on him.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cornerstone Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 Toad, this must have taken some time to do! Well done, although I may be roaming the wrong circles when trying to influence beautiful women with my knowledge of the slide rules on my Breitlings - as soon as I start to talk about it, they turn to the next guy that says he has $20 on him.... You're definitely just in the wrong circles. I was up at the pub on the weekend and I found that when I suggested they spread their legs to equal the Breitling's 'Distance of Climb or Descent' they became a lot more engaged in my conversation.... Which they expressed through the art of slapping... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwoTone Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 Awesome Review Toad... Thanks, TT . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coolfire Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 OMG... Can one of the Admin team or Mods please pin this? Completely invaluable! Thank you Toad! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strattakan Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 Fantastic! Pin this admin please! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chronoluvvv Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 POST of the month !!! now i can never give up my Bentley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAHLER Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 Thank you, finally I know how to use all those numbers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rolexman Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 Feels like I'm back in high school ... I hate math LOL Great write up, now all I need is a Breit with a slide rule Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lazarini Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 Top notch Mr. Toad! Love it thx for taking the time Laz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toadtorrent Posted January 8, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 POST of the month !!! now i can never give up my Bentley ...or upgrade to the Montbrillant Legende as I believe the markers on that new rep are aligned more accurately than the Bentley! Thanks all for the comments. Let me know if anybody discovers things that need changing or errors...there were lots of numbers and stuff to play around with, so it was quite difficult to edit this one with the photos looking pretty similar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HauteHippie Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 Nice job, Toad! People will have no problem learning something new when the material is entertaining! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jawo Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 Excellent write up!! Now only if my car could fly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shundi Posted January 13, 2009 Report Share Posted January 13, 2009 Just saw this...can't believe I didn't see it sooner! Excellent- Extremely well written and technical in all the right places! Toad strikes again!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nleap Posted October 12, 2009 Report Share Posted October 12, 2009 What reps out there have a slide rule that is actually accurate? the only thing keeping me back from the purchase of one of these is usually the slide rules are off. Toad you said the Montebrilliant was accurate are there any others? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trailboss Posted November 2, 2009 Report Share Posted November 2, 2009 I'd like to know the answer to that too nleap. FYI, if you want a watch in this pricerange specificily for using the slide rule Seiko have the exelent SNA411a for about 200 bucks which does all the calculations with a garentee of accuracy. Don't EVER use a rep for important stuff like flying or working out wether you have enough fuel on board to get out to the reef and back. Seiko: Yes, it's quartz but it's a damn good tool watch if that's what you need, not want. Col. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toadtorrent Posted November 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 2, 2009 That's the thing...like T-boss said...don't use a rep for critical issues / calculations. Hackr picked up a Datora that had properly aligned slide rule markings...but that was on the critical markers...not sure if the rest of the gradations are correct. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vafarmer70 Posted May 13, 2010 Report Share Posted May 13, 2010 I just re read this. Trying to make this thing do something lol Thank you for pinning this up here for us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redwatch Posted May 20, 2010 Report Share Posted May 20, 2010 Toad - realize this has been around here for a while, but what a cool write up!!! Thanks for doing this! Now that I have seen Andreww's Navi, this puts that watch into a whole new perspective! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gran Posted May 20, 2010 Report Share Posted May 20, 2010 Thanks! Awsome thread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottosaurus Posted August 29, 2010 Report Share Posted August 29, 2010 I'm an engineer and quite proficient with many calculators. I've never been very interested in Breitlings because I thought they were too flashy. Now that I understand how useful they are I'm looking at them in a completely different light. I doubt I would ever use the slide rule function on a watch, but it's cool to know that I could if I was ever in a pinch. The sad thing is that nowadays I'm sure most Breitling owners have no idea about the slide rule capability of their timepieces. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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