"Basics of Analog Computers" book - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

8 Nov 2000

From: Mark Gregory &lt;gregorym(a)cadvision.com&gt;

...
 Well this has certainly been an informative (and
eye-opening) thread for me.
...
 I had no idea that analogue computers were as common
and as long-lived as
...
 they were. 
That last word should be not WERE but, ARE.  They still are used.

...
  In the only  "History of Computation" course
that was included in 
...
 my Comp Sci program, analogue computers were treated
only incidentally, with
...
 the implication that development ceased with the advent
of digital computers
...
 (whether electro-mechanical or electronic) in the mid
1940s. In that course
...
 and in other computing histories I've read,
analogue computers seem to be an
...
 unfairly neglected topic. 

They were not always thought of as computers, hence the neglect.  Think
servo
systems and they come back as those very non digital systems.   They may
have been part of a larger mixed system like a attitude control system in
a
missle or autopilot for an airplane.  The systems encompassed in the
analog
computers are around us still.

Allison