Can analog make a comeback?

[Garth Wilson]

From the title, I thought it was going to be about analog recording. Cassette sales are actually increasing again today, and National Audio Company just set up to begin producing cassette tapes again, the first produced in many years, with a new formulation that is supposed to be much superior to all previous type-1 formulations. (Types II and IV manufacture pollutes too much to be allowed today, at least in the US.)

This is interesting, as a friend just sent me something about analog computers recently. Op amps have improved dramatically in speed, accuracy, sensitivity, noise, etc. since the heyday of analog computers, so it stands to reason that an electronic analog computer today could do far better than they could back then.

I bookmarked this interesting video about mechanical analog shipboard fire-control computers, apparently from WWII: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4

(03-07-2018 01:08 AM)mfleming Wrote:  After all, we went from Kitty Hawk to the Moon with slide rules that give only two or three places of accuracy.

Uh... make that usually three to four, as long as you have good vision and know how to veneer-adjust by rolling your fingers (yes, including on the slide, which many people in online video slide-rule demonstrations don't know how to do). I can quite often get four even with my pocket slide rule. Just for the sport of it, and because of the doubters, I sometimes check against a calculator, and the fourth digit may be off by 1 or 2, definitely closer than not trying for a 4th. (Yes, I do sometimes still use a slide rule, to sharpen my mind.)