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Why do computers have clocks? So they don't have to do everything at once. (the joke is that analog computers don't have clocks... Do they?)
by cduzz 2y ago
Why do computers have clocks?
So they don't have to do everything at once.
(the joke is that analog computers don't have clocks... Do they?)
- walterbell 2y ago> analog computers don't have clocks Laws of Physics?
- JKCalhoun 2y agoThe old jumper-wire style analog computers I'm envisioning did not have a clock to my knowledge [1]. Does the animal brain have a clock? [1] ChatGPT says otherwise — says, yes, they did have a clock of sorts. I'm wondering if something like a voltage sweep (triangle or sine wave?) would be a kind of "clock input" for an analog computer though.
- imtringued 2y agoI would assume that neurons would behave more like a wavefront processor, but even this analogy is still a big stretch.
- zabzonk 2y agoi sort of maintained one them back in the early 80s and i seem to remember that it packed a wave generator as one of its inputs, which could kind of be used as a clock. but don't quote me - i'm strictly a digital guy!
- dragontamer 2y ago> (the joke is that analog computers don't have clocks... Do they?) Not a digital clock, no. But your modem controller (2.4GHz, 5GHz or whatever) has a frequency that the radio analog chips are adding, multiplying, exponenting and decimating to pull the data out of the radio waves. And computation to pull data out of (or push data into) a 2.4GHz channel is best done with analog today. Sure, SDR exists but its far more expensive than some PLLs and other analog techniques.