Pocket calculators only came into common use in the 1970s. Digital computers first appeared in the 1940s, but were not in widespread use by the general public until the 1980s. Before pocket calculators, there were mechanical desktop calculators, but these could only add and subtract and at best do the most basic of multiplications.

A tool commonly used by engineers and scientists who dealt with math in their work was the slide rule. A slide rule is actually a simple form of what is called an analog computer, a device that does computation by measuring and operating on a continuously varying quantity, as opposed to the discreet units used by digital computers. While many analog computers work by measuring and adding voltages, the slide rule is based on adding distances.

A simple slide rule looks like two rulers that are attached to each other so that...