When we hear the word computer, most of us think intuitively of an electronic digital computer, but it hasn’t always been that way. For many years, digital computers competed with their electronic analogue counterparts for scientific applications involving heavy number-crunching, with the digital approach only prevailing in the late 1970s.
However, after so many decades of digital dominance, some researchers believe that future computers might, once again, involve an element of analogue technology. Irrespective of whether, one day, you’ll be buying a PC with an analogue co-processor, the analogue approach to computing is part of our heritage. As such, it’s something that will surely interest the technically minded computer user.
If this is a total mystery to you, however, we’re here to help you appreciate this different way of computing.…