THE ANALOG THING
Newsletter #10 (August 24th, 2022)
Welcome to the tenth newsletter on all things THAT (THE ANALOG THING).
Good news, everybody...
To quote one of my favourite Futurama characters: "Good news everyone"!
After our struggles with THAT production in China we are happy and proud to announce that THE ANALOG THING will from now on be manufactured in Germany by Neuschäfer Elektronik!
The above picture shows the Neuschäfer and anabrid team after our final meeting prior to production start.
With production at Neuschäfer Elektronik, THE ANALOG THING will now be manufactured according to industry standards ISO 9001 and ISO 14001.
The first two THAT boards will arrive this week at our lab where we will perform thorough tests to make sure we did not miss anything that might cause problems in the future. The production of the next batch of 600 THATs will start in two weeks.
Shipping
With the prototype boards arriving this week, production should start in the first week of September. Two weeks later (mid September) we expect the batch of 600 systems to arrive at our place where we will then start assembly and testing. So - fingers crossed - shipping should start end of September.
Therefore, the updated table of shipping date estimates now looks as follows:
| Order number | Batch | Estimated shipping date |
|---|---|---|
| AP1000 – AP1180 | 1.0 | fully shipped |
| AP1181 – AP1700 | 2.0 | Sept/Oct 2022 |
| AP1701 – AP1950 | 2.1 | Nov 2022 |
| AP1951 – AP2200 | 2.2 | Dec 2022 |
THE ANALOG THING in public
THE ANALOG THING had its own exhibit at the Vintage Computer Festival (VCF) a few weeks ago. The following picture shows Lyle Bickley with THE ANALOG THING generating an Euler spiral.
There will be an analog computing workshop by Michael Koch at the Sternwarte Sankt Andreasberg on August 27th, 2022.
THE ANALOG THING was also demonstrated at the Festival der Zukunft in
Munich on July 22nd, 2022:
Community projects
A lot has going on in the THAT community! Here is a non-comprehensive list of projects:
- A very interesting development for THE ANALOG THING is THE HYBRID THING. It is still a work in progress but we are looking forward to see it in action, coupled to a THAT.
-
Rob Jansen's
TeensyScope acts
quite like a "real" analog oscilloscope.
-
Michael Koch has developed a versatile function generator/delay line etc.
for use with THE ANALOG THING.
The various source codes can be found here:
Customer feedback
We are aware of the fact that we are behind schedule and we understand everyone who is not happy about the delays. We have now shipped about 250 THATs with the upcoming next batch being 600 machines, so we are confident that delays will get much shorter. With this next batch we will be able to build a stock of THATs ready for shipping.
Apart from these problems, we also get rather enthusiastic feedback such as this which made the day for our whole team:
I couldn’t be happier with the computer. The quality of the construction of the device, intuitive ease of use, and even the packaging is remarkable. Following the example booklet allowed me to quickly understand connections and operation. You and your team have a winning product! Both educational and as a tool for modeling countless systems in science and industry. I’ll be ordering a second unit soon to accomplish the scope of the project I’m developing.
Analog Consultation Hour
The next Analog Consultation Hour will take place on Sunday, August 28th, 2022 at 6 PM Berlin time. Zoom link: https://anabrid.zoom.us/j/94750770887
Happy analog computing!
Recent newsletters
- 2021-09-30: Newsletter #1 (Welcome, Introduction at conferences, Towards production, The Wiki)
- 2021-11-27: Newsletter #2 (800 subscribers, v1.2, Web shop is open, Application notes)
- 2022-01-17: Newsletter #3 (Production and Ordering, first batch sold out)
- 2022-03-03: Newsletter #4 (Production, testing and shipping prepared, Veritasium, Booklet)
- 2022-03-30: Newsletter #5 (First batch arrived and is shipped)
- 2022-04-15: Newsletter #6 (Delays in production and test, Shipping estimates)
- 2022-05-16: Newsletter #7 (Batch 1.5 produced at new supplier, Analog consultation hour)
- 2022-06-16: Newsletter #8 (Further Production delay, presentations, social media)
- 2022-07-01: Newsletter #9 (Further Production delay, presentations, social media)
Contact
As always, please do not hesitate to contact us at that@anabrid.com if you have questions regarding THE ANALOG THING.
You can share this newsletter issue with the link https://the-analog-thing.org/newsletter/10/.
