#analog computers

[nemfrog]

Woman using Beckman/SDS Integrated Computer System. 1964.

Science History Institute

[hezigler]

The ancient computer that simply shouldn't exist

How many other such devices may have existed in the ancient world?

[catcrumb]

[scipunk]

Outland (1981)

[foodbucketjesus]

.: 😎

[opendirectories]

[katecursed]

abstract composition in amber phosphor i

2024, early 90s drawing tablet on early 80s amber computer monitor

[kurovaki]

Thing I did for fun, I fw the oracle project sm

[fabio-27125]

I did some drawing these days 😇

[coolclipartfree]

Sorry about such a long hiatus, unfortunately it's unlikely that I'll ever consistently update this blog again. I'll still pop in every once in a while for things like this clipart I found out of a religious youth group clipart book. Bye for now though

[pigswithwings]

a sense of longing

[spampai]

Analagoue HorRor

FeAt:

-Wilten FalE

-Mondayla machaloguE

-BoilinIIng HoT PancakE

-Andii’s AppEl FarmE

[lvngd8adgrl]

[ladymewstudio]

Pretty cool game I found

[scipunk]

Three Days of the Condor (1975)

[gaykarstaagforever]

The Bendix G-15 from 1956, the world's first "personal computer." One of these cabinets weighed a literal 1000 lbs. and cost half a million dollars in today's money. Or you could rent it for the equivalent of $17,000 a month.

It was numeric only, you had to "talk" to it via a typewriter, and when you turned it off it 'forgot' everything. It used 'drum memory,' which used the same rust-covered-spinning-magnetic-thing technology all hard drives would continue to use until flash memory became a thing. But in the Bendix it looked something like this (one from a slightly earlier computer):

This computer is so old no one seems to have figured out what 'bits' it is. All I know is that drum thing "holds 2,160 words of twenty-nine bits." It can also do basic math problems in 270 microseconds. ...Which sounds fast, but that means it can do 2+2=4 in 27 thousandths of a second. Which is probably exactly how long it took your stupid brain to do that. For slightly more complex math, hiring a human mathematician at this time would be both cheaper and easier than dealing with this computer.

This is a "vacuum tube / diode analog architecture" computer, and it already had some kind of OS that meant you didn't have to know machine code? But that slowed it down even more...?

I have absolutely no idea how analog computers worked, or how anyone used one. There are tape decks on this thing, and it is plugged into a typewriter. Like I get the digital 1 and 0 thing, but I have no concept how you make light bulbs and blobs of germanium do that electronically.

But someone did, and this eventually led to you streaming Now That's What I Call Music! No. 86 on a Samsung phone.

So obviously all of this was a good idea...