Hi Dave and welcome
Had totally forgotten texas instruments and there calculators, was on my list of wants in the early days but now think I would struggle to switch one on never mind use one practically. Computers make me lazy
Like you I am retired but still keep doing linux and computer stuff
Enjoy being part of the contributing team on the site where we share and learn
Hi Dave,
And Welcome to the forum from one retiree to another.
I am in the same boat with you. I don’t want to use my slide rule even if I could find it.
And log tables! Not since high school or college. Too long ago to remember which. 
Take care,
Howard
Maybe there is an app that will emulate a slide rule?
For Android there’s “Smart Slide Rule” by TAPO.
Never thought virtual slide rules till i saw the suggestion … and yes they are available on line, couod not test them as on my tablet not with mouse but real collection
https://www.sliderulemuseum.com/VirtualSR.shtml
Or
https://www.animatedsoftware.com/elearning/DigitalSlideRule/index.html
Entertainment for a rainy day
I got my BSEE at Iowa State in 1965. The computer then had its own room in the “new” EE building and it consisted of (at least two) rows of six-foot racks containing thousands of vacuum tubes. One dual triode could store one bit. The human interface was a teletype machine that had a paper tape reader attached to it. We wrote small programs in some low-level language, and punched a tape somewhere else, then brought the tape to the computer room to run it and the results (or error messages) came out on the teletype paper. I forget what name was given to that computer.
The trouble with vacuum tubes was they had a mean time between failure of about 10 minutes. The chances of running a long program successfully were quite low.
Did you live on campus? In Friley by chance? That’s where I lived.
It was a little too handy to walk to each class and then back to the dorm. I would have been better off if the dorm were out of reach. Then I would have stayed on campus and reviewed notes or something.
I lived in Helser for 61/62; the next 3 years I lived off campus - Fraternity, then apartment. I now think my grades would have been better, I would have learned more, had I stayed in Helser. I interviewed with HP on campus and took the job; I’ve lived in CA ever since.
I cut my teeth on a IBM 360/30 with 32 KB of ram back in 1970. New programs were tested with punched cards, it also had 3 disk drives that heldl 7 MB each. One for the OS (DOS) and the other two for data.
I believe the 32KB of ram was actual “core memory” (ram).
Imagine that today with so much memory, you could not even switch it on