The Box

Information on the end of the box.....At one time, this box held some of my reloading supplies for shotgun shells.
Its original purpose was to hold computer paper.
"77-5003" ENMU Purchase Order for fiscal year 1977. So, this box has been around since the last half of 1976 or the first half of 1977.
"ATTN BOB HOLEMAN" Bob was Computer Center Director when I started to work there in 1973. He left in 1979.
Interpreting the label:
"Size 1485" 14 inches wide and 8 1/2 inches long.
"Rul. X" Ruled lines across the page....green-bar paper.
"Pap. 15" 15 pound paper weight.
"Perf. 0" The edges by the pin feed holes were not perforated.
"Fast. SGL" Single Ply....no need to crimp multi-part pages together.
"Quant. This Box 3000" 3000 fan-fold pages
"Ply 1" Single ply pages.
"Our Code Number 620664 10-76" The company was Uarco, and 620664 was the item number. "10-76" was the date of manufacture.

Today's Purpose

But, I decide to see if Uarco was still in business, so I used Google..... The first response that came back was a link to The Smithsonian National Museum of American History, "This two-sided rule made by Uarco Incorporated has its original manila paper sleeve. The front of the rule has a silver background with black markings and the ..."
Hey! I have one of those!! And, chasing the rabbit down a hole begins........

Uarco Rule Side 1

It's a forms design ruler......

The top edge is simply a 16 inch ruler marked in 1/16 inch increments. Our printers printed at either 6 or 8 lines per inch vertically.....You could use this scale to position lines at 8 per inch vertically when laying out a page.
The small holes laid out in 1/2 inch increments matched up with the perforations along the verticle edge of printer paper for the tractor feed mechanisms.
The slightly larger holes in the middle of the rule on the left side were 1/4" in diameter and laid out on 2 3/4 and 4 1/4 inch centers.
The even larger holes in the middle right were 13/32" on the same 2 3/4 and 4 1/4 inch centers. These were used in forms design for offices.....I don't ever remember needing them for printer layouts.
The scale at the bottom is the most used one for me. 1/10" increments. You used this scale to lay out fields to be printed. Our printers printed at 10 characters per inch horizontally. The widest paper we could print was 14 inches, and the most characters you could print horizontally was 132. You used this scale to lay out fields to be printed.

Uarco Rule Side 2

The top scale is "Metric - Millimeters/Centimeters". I don't ever remember using this scale.
The bottom scale is "6THS -- 12TS". We used this to lay out verticle lines for our printers when printing at 6 lines per inch (lpi) vertically

Moore Rule Side 1

A classier version of a forms design ruler.

The Moore version is stainless steel....The Uarco version is aluminum.
For the most part, scales were the same as the Uarco. This side shows the 1/12 and 1/6 scale as well as a scale of 1/32 and 1/16.
An interesting addition was the scale near the bottom labeled "(cards)". Using this scale, you could get a reasonable estimate of the number of punched cards in a stack at 140 cards per inch.

Moore Rule Side 2

The top scale is 10 characters per inch horizontal layout tool.
I never found a use for the scale a the bottom.....5/32 markings......

Contrast and Compare

The sales reps from the respective companies would visit the Computer Center several times per year. If you could catch one of them in a good mood, you could ask for one of their rulers. I got my Uarco rule that way, and I think Bob Holeman gave me the Moore version when I moved from being a computer operator to the applications programmer position.

I recently paused to read the label on a cardboard box in the storage cabinet...... And, I got side-tracked :-)