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rency in parts of Africa up until the early 20
th century. Young boys would decorate their
ANTON PETERLIN
battle gear with cowries for initiation rituals,
in a display of wealth and to send a message
to the girls that they were ready for marriage.
In battle, cowries were used as amulets alleg-
edly shielding the warriors from harm.
Togo, 20 th century, from the Anton Codelli Collection at the Slovene
Ethnographic Museum. Photo: Jure Rus.
ANTON MAVRETIC
PETERLIN’S ATTACHÉ CASE, purchased in the
US, which he used on business trips for decades.
Technical Museum of Slovenia. Photo: Nebojša Tejić, STA.
MEMORY UNIT, PROTOTYPE
In 1972 Mavretič built an early memory
unit for NASA’s IMP 7 and IMP 8 spacecraft.
The prototype was the result of an experi-
ment with Faraday cups for measuring the
solar wind. The module’s 7-kilobit storage ca-
pacity may seem negligible today, but at the
time it was a major stepping stone in a much
larger project. The structure with four Faraday
cups that Mavretič’s team designed five years
later would become one of the most impor-
tant space instruments of all time, the Voyag-
er mission’s PLS instrument.
Cultural Centre of European Space Technologies. Photo: Nebojša Tejić, STA.
PETERLIN’S SLIDE RULE, WHICH HE USED
IN HIS WORK ON A DAILY BASIS. Used by
engineers and engineering students to car-
ry out quick and fairly accurate calculations,
slide rules were a common tool in mechani-
cal and electrical engineering, aircraft design,
in the military, in surveying, and in all other
fields where logarithms, trigonometry, roots,
squares, multiplication, and division were re-
quired. Slide rules were eventually replaced
by the HP-35 calculator, which France Rode
helped design in 1972.
Technical Museum of Slovenia. Photo: Nebojša Tejić, STA.
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