I grew up in the days of log tables and slide rules
Example sentencesExamples
Prior to computers and electronic calculators, work was done on mechanical calculators and the designer had to work with log tables.
He produced log tables which were designed for taking 10th roots and powers of numbers.
In 1907 he developed log tables which were especially easy for students to use.
Engineers stopped using slide rules and log tables because they had handheld calculators.
A question asking about the price of a field per hectare referred students to the page of the log tables where they would find the relevant conversion formula.
In his pre-calculator days, he could spend all his free time calculating his batting average to several decimal points using log tables and slide rules!
To do this, we work out the power ratio and then look up the log of this value in log tables.
If you wanted to multiply two numbers together using a log table, you would look up the logarithm of both numbers and then add the logarithms together.
We can get the calculator out and do this calculation or, if you are a bit more hard-core, log tables or a slide rule.
I remember the recommendation on the first day of the course to buy a book of log tables.