New subject: Keeping My Promise

18 Mar 1998

...
 > Perhaps a real computer historian can chime in
here, but I vaguely  recall
...
 > that there was considerable experimentation and
debate early in the
> development of electronic computers along the lines of analog vs.  digital,
...
   von neumann vs
non-von, analogies to electronic brains, etc. 
 What do you mean by Von
Neumann? I see that as a self-replicating
mechanism...
...

I have here a book from the Philips Technical Library called 'Practical 
Robot Circuits' published in 1960. The first half of this book contains 
the design for a robot 'dog' using essentially an analogue control  system 
...
 (mostly amplifiers and comparators) to process the
signals from various 
sensors (photocells, microphones, thermistors, etc). The outputs of the  What can
this "dog" do? Does it have any kind of interesting
abilities?
...

BTW, the electronic side of the device uses valves (vacuum tubes). 

The second half of the book describes a tic-tac-toe machine, again  using 
...
 valves. This one is entirely digital AFAIK. Why
does EVERYONE love Tic-Tac-Toe so much? Bill Gates made a program,
this book has a machine....

[snip]

AFAIK, the Soviet Union, before it broke apart, put a lot of time
into analog and mechanical machines, anything but pure IC logic,
anyway. This was partly because they(we) didn't have the technology
to make reliable VLSI ICs on a large scale, but mostly  that the
weird non- or semi-digital machines can handle a lot more beating
and EM interference.
...

I seem to recall that A.K. Dewdeny (That's not the right spelling...) 
wrote about 'analogue gadgets' in Scientific American at some point.  The 
...
 basic point IIRC was that analogue systems are good at
providing fast 
_approximate_ solutions to certain problems.

-tony

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Robots again