Analog Computer

From TheAnalogThing

An Analog Computer is a computer which computes with analog instead of digital information. The main properties of analog computing, as we practice it with the Analog Intelligence devices (such as The Analog Thing) are:

  • Continuous values and continuous time, no digit based number representation
  • Simultaneous data flow instead of algorithms, no clock
  • Low information computation with only a few (effectively) significant digits

There are a lot of primers how to start into analog computing, for instances the books by Bernd or some publications by anabrid. There are close connections to large and exciting topics such as Quantum Computing or Artificial Intelligence. Analog computing is sometimes sorted into categories such as

  • Beyond Von-Neumann computing (Computer architectures which do not follow the Von Neumann or Harvard architecture)
  • Exotic or non-traditional computing (when digital imperative coding is the traditional approach)
  • Neuromorphic computing (inspired by the way the brain most likely works)