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Yet another conflation of digital and electronic. There have always been "digital" modes of computation.
by Mr_Minderbinder 3y ago
Yet another conflation of digital and electronic. There have always been "digital" modes of computation.
- analog31 3y agoTo be fair, despite the title, the article does describe digital mechanical calculators as "digital." An amusing aside, amongst electronics and audio people, there's an ongoing debate about whether a switchmode power supply or amplifier is "digital." Also, when CD players first came out, I was in a stereo shop, and some speakers were labeled as "digital ready."
- eesmith 3y agoMmmm, that was pretty clear from the text. Top of page 6: 'I wrote "The calculation before we went digital", but the digital age started when the first man has counted some objects with the fingers (digitus in Latin means finger). ... With the digital system the numbers are represented by single units, such as the bead of the abacus or a number: counting the same stones' The author then goes through pages describing pre-computer digital systems, including the pascaline, with 'a digital display of the sixteen century'.