slide rule
Noun
Meaning
analog computer consisting of a handheld instrument used for rapid calculations; have been replaced by pocket calculators
Source: WordNetSynonyms
Antonyms
Hypernyms
Examples
Addition and subtraction are not well-supported operations on slide rules and doing a calculation on a slide rule tends to be slower than on a calculator.
Addition and subtraction steps in a calculation are generally done mentally or on paper, not on the slide rule.
A Russian circular slide rule built like a pocket watch that works as single cursor slide rule since the two needles are ganged together.
A rosary card is either one with a "handle" that moves like a slide rule to count the decade, or it has a whole rosary with bumps similar to Braille and ancient counting systems.
A slide rule requires the user to separately compute the order of magnitude of the answer in order to position the decimal point in the results.
In 1722, Warner introduced the two- and three-decade scales, and in 1755 Everard included an inverted scale; a slide rule containing all of these scales is usually known as a "polyphase" rule.