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A slide rule is a mechanical device that uses sliding scales to perform mathematical calculations, functioning as an early analog computer before electronic calculators became common. It was essential for engineers, scientists, and mathematicians throughout the 20th century because it allowed them to quickly solve complex multiplication, division, and other calculations by hand.
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Encyclopedic overview
Typical ten-inch (25 cm) student slide rule (Pickett N902-T simplex trig)
A slide rule is a hand-operated mechanical calculator consisting of slidable rulers for conducting mathematical operations such as multiplication, division, exponents, roots, logarithms, and trigonometry. It is one of the simplest analog computers.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “slide rule” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.