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> No it is not. Analog computers were used before good digital computers could be produced, for the same roles and straightforward problems. Actually, analogue
by blattimwind 9y ago
> No it is not. Analog computers were used before good digital computers could be produced, for the same roles and straightforward problems.
Actually, analogue computing was still widely used for simulation and the like in many industries well into the 70s and 80s. Though often augmented with digital computers, for various purposes (simulation series, automated recording/reporting etc.)
- CamTin 9y agoI think "70s and 80s" is well within the definition of "before good digital computers could be produced" in the context of many industries. You guys aren't disagreeing.
- blattimwind 9y ago16 bit minis were, well, not common, but still used in numbers in labs and the like. Consider that d. computers are mostly used for information systems nowadays, meanwhile analogue computers were not used at all for that purpose. So apart some inventive examples I won't rule out, no company migrated from paper to analogue computing to digital computing, because analogue computers were not suited for information systems. That's likely why analogue computers persisted for fairly long after the introduction of digital computers: they solve very different problems, and an analogue computer could solve simulation problems at a speed that the 16 bit mini right next to it would never achieve. Also, they are highly modular (in fact they are nothing but a bunch of fundamental modules like integrators, diffs and other filters that the user interconnected as required) and very easy to extend with specialized circuitry and the like. Thus, from a purchase/investment point of view, analogue computers could easily be scaled, while this was more difficult with digital computers.