NVIDIA: One ruler to rule them all

Over at the company's blog, NVIDIA showcases one of the hottest products that it sold by the firm's internal store. Pictured below is the NVIDIA ruler, a unique product that helps engineers to calibrate the digital world to the real world. The ruler features various of the most used components that are found on NVIDIA video cards. It helps engineers to avoid using parts that are too large, or too small, for a design.

The ruler was created last year by VP of Hardware Engineering Andrew Bell. So far the company's internal shop has sold 5,000 units of this highly sought-after gimmick. It is not sold to the general public, but sometimes you can find it on eBay for around $35, which is ten times the price NVIDIA charges to its employees.

The story behind NVIDIA’s least likely cult product began in 2016 with VP of Hardware Engineering Andrew Bell, a 15-year veteran of the company. Bell wanted something engineers could slip into their back pocket and take with them to design meetings.

The motivation, Bell explains, was that many of the interns and new college graduates NVIDIA hires come from working in the digital world, where the physical size of things is hard to understand.

Weaving a GPU into the mesh of inductors and capacitors, diodes and crystals held together by these boards takes sweat, a steady hand and a good soldering iron.

The rule would be a training tool to calibrate people’s digital world to the real world, to avoid using components that were too large, or too small, for a design, Bell says.