
Actually, No, This Wasn’t Done With A Slide Rule - znmeb
http://borasky-research.net/2011/07/02/actually-no-this-wasnt-done-with-a-slide-rule/#.ThADhHa6e_0.hackernews
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billswift
Even if mainframe computers hadn't been available, it would have been done
like the Manhattan Project was, by many human computers at electro-mechanical
calculators. Slide rules are to imprecise for actual orbital calculations.

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znmeb
Yes, the Manhattan Project number crunching was mostly done by humans on
mechanical calculators. There were some electromechanical machines available
to them.

After the war, though, some of the calculations for the "super" - the Hydrogen
Bomb - were done on electronic machines. In particular, there was a concern
that the Super might ignite the atmosphere and the calculations to check that
were a bit much for rooms full of people coordinated by pneumatic tubes.

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dalke
I just looked through the paper by Konopinski, Marvin, and Teller which works
through those calculations.
<http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/docs1/00329010.pdf> . I don't see
any mention of any use of artificial calculation devices.

