Collaborate Disseminate
Lord Kelvin’s name comes up anytime you start looking at the history of science and technology. In addition to working on transatlantic cables and thermodynamics, he also built an early …read more Continue reading Mechanic Prince of Tides
Analog computers have been around in some form for a very long time. One very obvious place they were used was in military vehicles. While submarine fire computers and the …read more Continue reading Computer Gear with — um — Gears
Before the era of digital electronic computers, mechanical analog computers were found everywhere. From the relative simplicity of bomb sights to the complexity of fire control computers on 1940s battleships, …read more Continue reading Reverse-Engineering the Mechanical Bendix Central Air Data Computer
We are all used to modular construction in the analogue synth world, to the extent that there’s an accepted standard for it in EuroRack. But the same techniques are just …read more Continue reading A Modular Analogue Computer
With the incredible variety of projects submitted to our Op-Amp Contest, you’d almost forget that operational amplifiers were originally invented to perform mathematical operations, specifically inside analog computers. One popular …read more Continue reading Op-Amp Contest: Virtual Ball-in-a-Box Responds to Your Motions
Whenever [Ken Shirriff] posts something, it ends up being a fascinating read. Usually it’s a piece of computer history, decapped and laid bare under his microscope where it undergoes reverse …read more Continue reading Inside Globus, a Soviet-Era Analog Space Computer
We are always impressed with something so simple can actually be so complex. For example, what would you think goes into an analog computer? Of course, a “real” analog computer …read more Continue reading Circuit VR: The Wheatstone Bridge Analog Computer
Although the tides in the ocean are caused by the motion of the Sun and the Moon, both of which are easy to observe, accurately predicting the tide more than …read more Continue reading Analog Computer Made From LEGO Predicts Tides
The analog computer of decades-gone-by is something many of us younger engineers never got the chance to experience first hand. It’s pretty much a case of reading about them on …read more Continue reading Forget Digital Computing, You Need An Analog Computer
How do you rapidly record the output from your three million dollar analog computer in the 1940s when the results are only available on analog meters? The team responsible for the Westinghouse 1947 AC Network Calculator at Georgia Tech was …read more
Continue reading The Modding, Restoration, and Demise of a $3M Analog Computer