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This is a list of examples of early computation devices considered precursors of the modern computers. Some of them may even have been dubbed 'computers' by the press, though they may fail to fit modern definitions. The Antikythera mechanism, dating between 150 and 100 BC, was an early analog computer.
As an analog computer does not use discrete values, but rather continuous values, processes cannot be reliably repeated with exact equivalence, as they can with Turing machines. [58] The first modern analog computer was a tide-predicting machine, invented by Sir William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, in 1872. It used a system of pulleys and wires ...
Third-generation computers were offered well into the 1990s; for example the IBM ES9000 9X2 announced April 1994 [30] used 5,960 ECL chips to make a 10-way processor. [31] Other third-generation computers offered in the 1990s included the DEC VAX 9000 (1989), built from ECL gate arrays and custom chips, [32] and the Cray T90 (1995).
The first modern analog computer was a tide-predicting machine, invented by Sir William Thomson (later to become Lord Kelvin) in 1872. The differential analyser , a mechanical analog computer designed to solve differential equations by integration using wheel-and-disc mechanisms, was conceptualized in 1876 by James Thomson , the elder brother ...
The general purpose analog computer (GPAC) is a mathematical model of analog computers first introduced in 1941 by Claude Shannon. [1] This model consists of circuits where several basic units are interconnected in order to compute some function. The GPAC can be implemented in practice through the use of mechanical devices or analog electronics.
Unlike modern digital computers, analog computers are not very flexible and need to be reconfigured (i.e., reprogrammed) manually to switch them from working on one problem to another. Analog computers had an advantage over early digital computers in that they could be used to solve complex problems using behavioral analogues while the earliest ...
An analog computer is a form of computer that uses electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic phenomena to model the problem being solved. More generally an analog computer uses one kind of physical quantity to represent the behavior of another physical system, or mathematical function. Modeling a real physical system in a computer is called simulation.
An analog computer is a type of computer that uses analog signals, which are continuous physical quantities, to model and solve problems. These signals can be electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic in nature. Analog computers were widely used in scientific and industrial applications, and were often faster than digital computers at the time.