Slide Rule Wristwatches

SLIDE RULE WRISTWATCHES

Robert Adams

Robert graduated with a Electro-Technology Diploma from the SA

Institute of Technology in 1970, using a slide rule (Thornton P221)
and with a Engineering Degree in 1979 using a electronic calculator
(HP25). He is currently the Principal Strategist for ElectraNet, an
electricity transmission company. He started collecting slide rules
approximately 10 years ago and has currently approx. 400 rules in
the collection. A main focus of the collection is “Electro” slide rules
and rules that have hyperbolic functions. Robert currently resides in
Enfield, South Australia.

A slide rule watch can be defined as any watch which combines the normal chronological
functions with a calculating device that uses logarithmic scales. A small number of watches
have only one logarithmic scale that rotates around a fixed time scale or have only one
logarithmic scale for decoration, I do not consider these to be slide rule watches.

Introduction
The first slide rule watch was probably a pocket watch designed by Meyrat & Perdrizet in
France near the turn of the 19th century.

The slide rule wristwatch has a relatively recent origin, appearing from 1940 onwards. There
is some dispute about who manufactured the first slide rule wristwatch, but it was certainly a
Swiss firm. The first three slide rule wristwatches came from the firms MIMO, Juvenia and
Breitling. The Mimo-Loga was possibly the first, with its patent application appearing on July
27, 1940, some weeks before Breitling's patent for the Chronomat which was submitted on

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August 26, 1940. The Juvenia Arithmo is usually dated around 1945 when it became
commercially available. The images of the Mimo-Loga, Juvenia and the Breitling below are
taken from Art Simon’s Slide Rule watch site.

However In 1952, Breitling also introduced a pilot's wristwatch with an integrated circular
slide rule that incorporated scales specialized for flight calculations: the Navitimer. This watch
which was referred to by Breitling as a "navigation computer", featured airspeed, rate/time of
climb/descent, flight time, distance, and fuel consumption functions, as well as kilometre–
nautical mile and gallon–litre fuel amount conversion functions. This watch, available in larger
commercial quantities, came to epitomise the slide rule watch.
With few exceptions no other watch manufacturers introduced slide rule models until the
1960’s. This may be attributed to the fact that Swiss patents have a term of 20 years, and so
after the 1940 patents expired, other watch manufacturers felt free to incorporate logarithmic
scales on their products.
The Japanese (Seiko and Citizen) introduced models around the 70’s. And now even budget
brands such as Casio have introduced slide rule models.

Types
Slide rule wristwatches can be broadly categorized into two classes based upon their scale
types and the number of scales included. The categories are described as follows.

Calculating Watches
Aviator (or Navigator) Watches

Calculating watches
These wristwatches usually have only two scales usually a C and D scale arranged in
similar fashion to the Mimo-Loga patent. (Note: in this paper I will refer to the C scale as being
the outer most scale on the watch). Examples of this genre are:

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The Girard – Perregaux The Ventura Loga

Aviator watches
An aviator or navigator slide rule wristwatch by
definition should assist the navigator in calculations
required by their profession. To do this the slide rule
wristwatch needed to emulate the main functions of the
E6-B computer, the pilot’s manual calculating device.

An E6-B Flight Computer

The Breitling Navitimer was the first to do this by

combining the C and D scales on a rotating Bezel and
inner face and with a direct 9-hour speed scale on the
clock face in a similar layout to the E6-B. This
arrangement enabled pilots to calculate airspeed,
rate/time of climb or descent, flight time, distance, and
fuel consumption functions, as well as kilometre–nautical mile and gallon–litre fuel amount
conversion functions.

Examples of this type are:

Breitling Navitimer with 9-hour speed scale. The Pulsar

(Note: not all Navitimers have this scale) (probably 100 times cheaper than the Breitling!)

Use
The uses of the slide rule scales on a slide rule wristwatch are as per the normal methods
used on any circular slide rule and any instructions for a circular slide rule would be able to be
used for the slide rule watch. To illustrate the general calculations and aviation calculations I
have condensed instructions from the Casio Watch Company. The full and unabridged
instructions can be found on their website http://world.casio.com/. The examples use an

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aviator watch which has a outer and inner logarithmic scale and also a inner time scale. In
these explanations I will use the terms inner and outer to refer to the logarithmic scales and the
term inner (time scale) to refer to the time scale.
Math Calculations
Multiplication
Example 12 x 15

Align 12 on the outer scale with 10 on the inner

scale. Then, 15 on the inner scale corresponds to 18
on the outer scale, taking into account the position
of the decimal point to obtain the answer of 180.

Division
Example 300 / 15

Align 30 on the outer scale with 15 on the inner

scale. Then, 10 on the inner scale corresponds to 20
on the outer scale, taking into account the position
of the decimal point to obtain 20.

With other methods ratios and square roots can

be obtained.

Conversions
Distance
Example: Convert 45 miles into nautical miles and kilometres

Align 45 on the outer scale with STAT on the

inner scale. Then, NAUT on the inner scale
corresponds to about 39 nautical miles on the outer
scale, and KM on the inner scale corresponds to
about 72 km on the outer scale

Weight
Example: Convert 16.4 oil lbs. into U.S. gallons and IMP gallons and litres.

Align 16.4 on the inner scale with OIL LBS on

the outer scale. Then, U.S. GAL on the outer scale
corresponds to about 2.2 U.S. gallons on the inner
scale, and IMP. GAL on the outer scale
corresponds to about 1.8 IMP gallons on the inner
scale, and LITERS on the outer scale corresponds
to about 8.3 litres on the inner scale

Volume
Example: Convert 13.1 fuel lbs. into U.S. gallons and
IMP. gallons and litres.

Align 13.1 on the inner scale with FUEL LBS on

the outer scale. Then, U.S. GAL on the outer scale
corresponds to about 2.2 U.S. gallons on the inner
scale, and IMP. GAL on the outer scale

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corresponds to about 1.8 IMP. gallons on the inner scale, and LITERS on the outer scale
corresponds to about 8.3 litres on the inner scale
Aviation
Travel Time required
Example: Obtain the time required for the flight of an aircraft at 160 knots for 240
nautical miles

Align 16 on the outer scale with the speed

index (in this case the MPH line) on the inner
scale. Then, 24 on the outer scale corresponds
to "1:30" on the inner scale (time scale). Thus,
the time required for the flight is 1 hours and
30 minutes. Note this only works for the same
dimensions i.e. in this case knots and nautical miles. It would not give the correct answer for
160 kilometres per hour and 240 nautical miles without conversion of one of the units.

Speed to distance
Example: Obtain the knots (air speed) for 250 nautical miles with a flight time of 1 hour and 40 minutes

Align 25 on the outer scale with "1:40" on

the inner scale (time scale).Then; the speed
index on the inner scale corresponds to 15 on
the outer scale. Thus, the air speed for the
flight is 150 knots. Again consistent units are
required.

Scales
Nearly all current slide rule wristwatches use a same scale layout with the two C and D
scales running left to right. The other scales from the standard slide rule which are used for
roots, trigonometry, logarithms or other mathematical operations are rarely seen on
wristwatches.
There are, however some notable exceptions.

The CI Scale
This is the inverse of the C scale. Invariably positioned as the outermost scale it increases in
magnitude in an anticlockwise manner. It normally replaced the C scale on the watch as can be
seen in the following image.

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The Breitling for Bentley

Only the Juvenia Arithmo, early Breitling manual-wind Chronomat, the current Breitling for
Bentley models and a Chinese replica of the Breitling for Bentley have this scale arrangement.
Although you can still perform the usual multiplication and division, the reason for this
inverse scale is a little difficult to establish, it is really only convenient if multiplication by
reciprocals (i.e. division) is your usual calculation.

Trigonometric Scales
Very rarely have trigonometric scales been included on slide rule watches. The only
example that I have seen is the magnificent Seiko 6138-7000,

Seiko 6138 - 7000 Scale designations

The images above show that the outermost scale is an inverse sine scale (SI). The scale
provides the answer to 1/sin(x) which would be of advantage in any calculation involving the
law of sines. It is interesting to note that the scale also has the converse to the sine scale i.e. the
cosine scale indicated in orange, which would also allow the calculation of problems involving
1/cos (x).
This watch is also unique for another reason which will be elaborated in a later section.

Index Mark
The index mark is placed at the 12 o’clock position usually on the inner scale. In the
majority of the aviator and other slide rule wristwatches the value on the D scale (the normally
fixed scale) at the index position is 60. In other cases the slide rule watches mimic a normal
circular slide rule and the value at the index position is 10 or 1.

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Examples
Index Mark = 60 Index Mark = 10

The reason for the placement of the index mark in these cases seems to be arbitrary. In most
cases Aviator type watches tend to have the index mark at 60. Where as most calculator
wristwatches tend to have the mark at 10. Although this convention is not consistently
applied.

Gauge Marks
Many wristwatches, particularly the Aviator type, include gauge marks for many of the
calculations. Most calculations involve a fixed relationship and are used for the conversion of
one quantity to another e.g. nautical mile to kilometres or litres to gallons. As such the
placement of the gauge marks could have been arbitrarily distributed along the scale. I.e.
taking the statute mile to kilometre gauge marks for example, as long as the relationship of
approximately 1 to 1.61 is maintained between the marks, any values could be used. But
nearly all watches conformed to the gauge mark values contained in the following table.

Category Gauge Mark Value

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Category Gauge Mark Value

Distance Nautical Mile 660 or 327
Statute Mile 760 or 380
Kilometre 1222 or 611

Fuel Litres 485

Fuel Lbs 766
Oil Lbs 960
Imperial Gallon 1065
US Gallon 1280

Mathematical Pi 3.14
Seconds 360
Lbs 3630
Kgm 1623
Feet 1430
Metres 4360

Cursors
Cursors on slide rule wristwatches are indeed rare; the only real example would again be
the unique and magnificent Seiko 6138-7000.

Rotating
Cursor

Cursor Parts

Cursors are indeed a rare inclusion for a number of reasons. Not least is the fact that
normally only two scales are usually involved and therefore an index mark is all that is
required. Another reason could be that the implementation of a cursor on a watch means that a
protuberance would be required and this would be prone to catching on pockets, garment
edges etc.
Another form of cursor is that used in the Mondia illustrated below. The Mondia had two
movable scales and had an engraved red hairline on the watch class. This provided a “cursor”
function.

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The Mondia

Accuracy
Sufficient accuracy and precision was and is the difficulty faced by all small length slide
rules and slide rule wristwatches being some of the shortest length scales suffered the most
from problems with accuracy and precision.
The “accuracy” of a calculation system is the degree of proximity of the calculated result to
its actual value. The “precision” of a calculation is the degree to which repeated calculations
show the same results.
As the scales on a slide rule wristwatch are concentric the repeatability of the calculation
would normally be guaranteed if there is no flex in the mounting of the scale rings. The
placement of the scales had a direct bearing on the readability of the scales and hence the
repeatability (precision) of the calculation. This is best demonstrated by the following images

Placement of the scales as close as possible to each Whereas placement of the scales in this example
other made reading straightforward makes accurate reading of the result difficult to repeat.

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In most linear slide rules, even, the cheapest rule had scales that “tick” marks that aligned
along the entire scale. The early and high end slide rule wristwatches, such as the Juvenia and
Breitling also showed the same manufacturing accuracy. But some modern slide rule
wristwatches demonstrate somewhat shoddy manufacturing techniques and the alignment of
the tick marks can be so far out of alignment that errors in calculation can easily approach
10%.

Citizen Wingman Index aligned Tick Mark at 30 aligned

Index aligned Tick mark at 30 out of alignment.

30 on the inner scale aligns with

GE Ollech and Wjas
29.8 on the outer scale

Evolution
As electronics drove to ever decreasing sizes it was inevitable that calculators could be
produced in the size aspect of wristwatches. There are many examples of “4 function”
calculators produced in wrist watch form but very few in scientific styles. Perhaps the most
complicated watch is the Casio CFX-200 shown in the following image.

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Like the HP35 to the slide rule this would seem to be the death knell for the slide rule
wristwatches. But no, the Casio CFX-200 has been and gone and the slide rule wristwatch is
more prevalent than ever. Why? I would like to think that the slide rule, has at last found a
position in the modern world, but alas I think it is a reflection of fashion or mode for the retro
feel.

Acknowledgements
Firstly I would like to thank Art Simon for allowing me to use many of the images from his
excellent Slide Rule watch site. http://sliderulewatches.googlepages.com/history.html. The use
of these images greatly assisted me in the preparation of this paper. And I relied upon his site
for the introductory historical information.
Secondly, I would also like to thank David Rance for again editing this paper and his many
suggestions that significantly improved it.

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