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Hey Judith,
I'm far from an expert in
anything. I'm jack of many trades and master of none.
I did not know that there were hybrid
digital/analog computational systems either. Sounds kind of neuronal to me
though. I thought that binary was adopted because of it's minimalistic
character. What's more minimum than a base two counting system?
Electricity though does not merely flow or not flow, it clearly also does so in
degrees. It seems that I remember that Faraday utilzed fluid flow
analogies when contemplating electricity. In fact when I think of an
electrical component such as an inductor, I think of something like a water
wheel like one might find on an old mill.
Does any of that strike you as
relevant?
David
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2005 12:50
PM
Subject: the abacus and the slide
rule...
Recently I was researching the history of digital computers,
which led me to look into analog computers as well. I've always considered
myself "an analog girl" (preferring a complete clock-face over a digital
readout and various dial controls on machines to programmable digital
pushpads, etc.) so I was curious about how the notion for using a binary
system came to be the accepted approach. One person I asked said it was
because of the nature of electricity, which can be either on or off, so the
zero represented "off" and the one represented "on". That made a bit of sense
to me, but it doesn't explain the ancient use of the abacus as one of the
first (known) digital computational devices. Among the nifty things I
inherited from my father were his Japanese Soroban abacus and his (almost as
ancient) slide rule. During my research I discovered that the slide rule is
designated as an example of an analog computational device. Does anyone on the
list have experience with analog computers or with hybrid computers? I hadn't
realized that there are hybrid systems, but it seems to me that this would be
a very good idea. Can anyone elaborate, please?
Judith
Web
address: http://www.rosen-enterprises.com
BioTheory: An electronic journal
of general science based on the Relational (Rosennean) Complexity Paradigm
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