Hobbies And Interests
The Beginning of the Slide Rule
John Napier discovered the logarithm for doing multiplication and division through addition and subtraction in 1614, which was the first step toward the invention of the slide rule. It wasn't until Edmund Gunter draw a ruled line with numbers spaced proportional to their log that Napier's discovery could be put to practical use. Gunter's rule required measuring the distance of one factor in the equation with a pair of dividers, then placing the dividers at the second factor and reading the answer at the combined distance. This proved cumbersome.
The First Real Slide Rule
William Oughtred took Gunter's rule and simplified it by doing away with the divider and simply sliding two rules together with separate values for each factor. This made calculating faster and easier than messing about with the dividers.
Soon, many different styles of slide rules were developed with the familiar moving rule bar between two fixed bars allowing for additional computations such as root, square root and cube measurements to be calculated.
Circular slide rules were also introduced using the same principles as the straight rule but in a more compact form.
Pickett Company History
The Pickett company was founded in Chicago in 1943 by Roswell Colvert Pickett. The following year Arthur. F. Eckel became a partner. They introduced their first slide rule, made of printed paper stock, in 1944. Two years later they followed this with a magnesium metal slide rule called the Deci-point.
Eckel left the company in 1948, and the following year the Eckel name was removed from the slide rules and manuals.
Pickett moved from magnesium to aluminum slide rules in the early 1950s.
The Pickett family sold the company to the Times Mirror Co. in 1964 and the company was renamed Pickett Industries. Roswell Pickett died in 1969.
Production moved to Nogales, Mexico in 1974 and was combined with Chartpack to form Chartpack/Pickett. By 1979, production of slide rules stopped as the electronic calculator squeezed the slide rule out of the marketplace.
Industry Leader
Pickett was a popular slide rule with scientists, engineers and mathematicians. This was a result of a combination of marketing and manufacturing strategies.
Pickett introduced a yellow-faced slide rule, which made it easier to read and reduced eye-strain. The company also manufactured a line of green-colored slide rules.
Pickett also had a large selection of slide rules designed for specific applications such as electrical calculations, aviation and trigonometry. The company also marketed a very successful basic slide rule for use in classrooms.