In the days before calculators and personal computers an engineer always had a slide rule nearby. These days it is difficult to locate a slide rule outside of a museum.
I don't know how many of those who have used a slide rule ever thought of it as an analog computer, but that is really what it is. As such, the slide rule can be used to teach the modern view of the relationship between nature and mathematics and about the formalization of this concept known as isomorphism, which is one of the most pervasive and important concepts in mathematics.
