15 Reasons Why a Slide Rule is Better than a Workstation

• A Slide Rule doesn't shut down abruptly when it gets too hot.
• One hundred people all using Slide Rules and Paper Pads do not start wailing and screaming due to a single-point failure.
• A Slide Rule doesn't smoke whenever the power supply hiccups.
• A Slide Rule doesn't care if you smoke, or hiccup.
• You can spill coffee on a Slide Rule; you can use a Slide Rule while completely submerged in coffee.
• You never get nasty system messages about filling up your entire paper quota with pointless GIF pictures for the root window.
• A Slide Rule and Paper Pad fit in a briefcase with space left over for lunch or a change of underwear.
• A properly used Slide Rule can perform pipelined *and* parallel operations. (Okay, you need a guru for this.)
• You don't get junk mail offering pricey software upgrades that fix current floating point errors while introducing new ones.
• A Slide Rule doesn't need scheduled hardware maintenance.
• A Paper Pad supports text and graphics images easily, and can be easily upgraded from monochrome to color.
• Slide Rules are designed to a standardized, open architecture.
• You can hold a Slide Rule at arm's length, to hit the obnoxious person at the next seat over.
• A Slide Rule is immune to viruses, worms, and other depredations from hostile adolescents with telephones.
• Additional Paper Pads can be integrated into the system seamlessly and without needing to reconfigure everything.
• Nobody will make you feel bad by introducing a smaller, faster, cheaper slide rule next month.

Based on an unoriginal Usenet post to uk.media.radio.archers by Mike Ellwood, June 1997.

...from the dishout.com website