• 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