Talking of calculators or was it gradients.........I bought my first pocket calculator in Dixons in about 1974 for 15 (post-decimalisation) quid. The LED display was red, and it did lots of clever things like add, subtract, divide, and multiply. No memory function though.

But even after 41 years I still like doing mental and pen powered arithmetic. Sitting in the sun a couple of days back i had a lot of enjoyment mapping out a track layout using Peco Setrack dimensions, and knowing the tangent of 22.5 degrees. A combination of sunglasses and an LCD calculator screen was not much use.

Quote from: woodbury22uk on April 25, 2015, 10:17:56 AM
Talking of calculators or was it gradients.....

Well originally I had hoped it would be about how to measure the performance of our locos with a   British Standard   NGF standard repeatable method rather than anecdotal tales of "mine will pull X hundred dapol "
But, great fun / read it has all been thank you everyone , it now seems that we have become totally derailed and that pull is not on the agenda.

I'll leave Webbo to try again perhaps

Meanwhile maybe a mod. should move this to General Chat ?

I'm inclined to think that now this topic has gone down the slippery slope, it could be an uphill struggle to bring it back.   

I pefer to see a gradient (road or rail) as 'x in y' rather than percent.  It just brings a better visual image, (for me), but I guess it's because that is what I grew up with.

Since all of these measures still reside in land surveying, why do I think that somewhere gradients used to be measured in rods per mile?  Of course two chains per mile (8 rods per mile) is actually a reasonable limit to strive for in our models  . 

General rule of thumb - if you can fit it on your layout, it's too steep. 

Metrication was the spawn of the devil, or even worse foreigners.
I can visualise a yard, i know the length of the cricket pitch is a chain and can see that In my mind, and my car travels in miles per gallon
When we go shopping I know what a 4lb chicken is or a pound of cheese. Even a quarter of sweets for the kids makes sense.
A steep hill is 1 in 3 and always will be.
It's about the only sensible thing the Americans do is shun the use of metrics, although I think  few weaklings are starting to give in.
If your layout is running steam, then these made up metric things hadn't even been invented when they were in use.. 

Quote from: Greybags on April 25, 2015, 09:56:27 PM
Metrication was the spawn of the devil, or even worse foreigners.
I can visualise a yard, i know the length of the cricket pitch is a chain and can see that In my mind, and my car travels in miles per gallon
When we go shopping I know what a 4lb chicken is or a pound of cheese. Even a quarter of sweets for the kids makes sense.
A steep hill is 1 in 3 and always will be.
It's about the only sensible thing the Americans do is shun the use of metrics, although I think  few weaklings are starting to give in.
If your layout is running steam, then these made up metric things hadn't even been invented when they were in use.. 

And things really started to go wrong when we started to use paper instead of slates and styluses - oh please! Things are always changing and moving on aren't they.

Good grief!!!

I think I have lost the will to live !!!

Lost the thread on this thead a while back, turning into gibberish.

Quote from: austinbob on April 25, 2015, 10:12:10 PM

And things really started to go wrong when we started to use paper instead of slates and styluses - oh please! Things are always changing and moving on aren't they.

Yes they are, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are better, just different.

And to return to the topic, it is far easier to measure a 1 in 33 gradient, as it is a ratio, not a percentage.. Measure 33 along, and it rises by 1, be it inches, mm, chains or yards.

I was just trying to show that it is often easier to visualise the older imperial way of doing things that it the more "modern" way, as we have reference points built in to our culture .. i.e. the cricket pitch.. The majority have seen a pitch and can see it in their minds, so they can relate something as being "x" number of pitches long or "x" times 22 yrds.

Take it to the pub, we all know what a pint looks like, but how many can see something and say its a litre..

As I have said, it was just supposed to be a slightly humorous (failed) way of showing that the older ways can sometime be easier to understand, in this case gradients.

I repeat. Good grief!!!

Quote from: Webbo on April 26, 2015, 10:39:55 AM
I repeat. Good grief!!!

I think I might be 'inclined' to move on from this thread.

Sloping off myself now.

Quote from: Greybags on April 26, 2015, 09:18:12 AM
Take it to the pub, we all know what a pint looks like, but how many can see something and say its a litre..

To you. But youngsters are just fine with both, and use litres in school. That in turn means they can work more easily internationally. Even the US link is often tenuous: Americans use a different gallon entirely, and Americans sell milk in quarts, not pints.

Quote from: Greybags on April 26, 2015, 09:18:12 AM
As I have said, it was just supposed to be a slightly humorous (failed) way of showing that the older ways can sometime be easier to understand...

To you.

Let me give a parallel: I use a Mac, and have done for over 20 years. But at work I have to use a Windows PC. To me, Windows seems ugly, clumsy and stupid. But if I'm being objective, that's because I'm less familiar with it. To someone who has used DOS and Windows for 20 years, I dare say Macs look just as alien and obtuse.

Cheers, NeMo