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In the early 1970s, analog computer manufacturers tried to tie together their analog computers with a digital computers to get the advantages of the two techniques. In such systems, the digital computer controlled the analog computer, providing initial set-up, initiating multiple analog runs, and automatically feeding and collecting data.
Polish hybrid computer WAT 1001. Hybrid computers are computers that exhibit features of analog computers and digital computers.The digital component normally serves as the controller and provides logical and numerical operations, while the analog component often serves as a solver of differential equations and other mathematically complex problems.
In World War II, mechanical analog computers were used for specialized military applications such as calculating torpedo aiming. During this time the first electronic digital computers were developed, with the term digital being proposed by George Stibitz in 1942.
A dozen of these devices were built before their obsolescence became obvious. By the 1950s, the success of digital electronic computers had spelled the end for most analog computing machines, but analog computers remained in use during the 1950s in some specialized applications such as education and aircraft (control systems).
These hypothetical computing machines can be viewed as idealised analog computers which operate on real numbers, whereas digital computers are limited to computable numbers. They may be further subdivided into differential and algebraic models (digital computers, in this context, should be thought of as topological , at least insofar as their ...
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.
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 ...
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 ...