article · English
A Practical Approach to Analog Computers
An 11-page introductory article, reprinted from Instruments & Control Systems (Vol. 35, No. 8, August 1962) and issued as EAI Applications Reference Library Computing Techniques 1.8.1, that explains analog computation to engineers unfamiliar with the field. It covers the basic building blocks of general-purpose analog computers—high-gain amplifiers, summing amplifiers, potentiometers, integrators, servomultipliers, and diode function generators—and demonstrates how to translate differential equations into patch-panel programs, using a simple pendulum problem as a worked example. The PACE 231R computer is illustrated as the representative hardware platform throughout.
analog computation introductionamplifiers and integratorsfunction generatorsproblem programming