There is a British Thornton slide rule on the table behind me even as I type! If the power goes out I can still calculate... Reaching the third form in boarding school was important as you had to have a slide rule for maths. It was a real "right of passage!" Like being allowed to have a bicycle at school... Electronic calculators were contraband. If you were caught with one it was confiscated. Of course we all secretly had one--but, hey, if you turned them upside down you could write words with them Now watch...I'll get my wrist slapped for straying off topic...better steer this towards bicycles pre-1983... Did anyone else on the list have to take the cycling proficiency test at school in England? (On a lugged steel bike of course...) If so do you still have the little triangular enamelled lapel badge? You couldn't ride your bicycle to school until you passed the test. I lost my badge years ago; wish I still had it... Lawrence (luddite) Bradley Tacoma, WA but my heart is on the Kentish Downs with the South Downs sheep...