What's so cool about "analog"?

[m k]

Maybe it is.

It tried to elevate a casual reader thinking what is isolated system and how a boson is not occupying a space.
And then finally you explaining it all.

E,
time something.

[coppice]

Try finding a new high frequency PNP transistor; the old ones were better. Even JFETs are becoming rarer.

The only individual transistors any serious resources are put into these days are power devices. Transistors you can't get that you could before probably stopped selling well. Whether its digital or analogue design, almost all serious circuit design these days is at the IC level.

[CatalinaWOW]

Digital has taken over electronics because the cost of building and connecting transistors and to a lesser extent diodes, resistors and capacitors has dropped through the floor.  A single transistor in a large CPU or memory chip literally costs less than a millionth of a cent.  As a result many of the problems which used to be done "analog" are cheaper and easier to implement in digital form.

But analog remains cool.  Many of the reasons have been enumerated in prior posts.  Another which has not been mentioned is that with enough creativity and effort complex results can be achieved with very simple circuits.  If you are willing to embrace non-linear effects much can be accomplished with one or two transistors.  Only rarely will these solutions be widely applied because large scale manufacture is difficult.  But nothing can replace the satisfaction of doing something unique.

[free_electron]

the problem with analog is power consumption. all these half states burn energy.
digital ( between clock transients ) consumes next to nothing

[SiliconWizard]

In the 70s it was cool to be digital, as it was really hard to do things digitally.

Was it? Every idiot can count to one.

[coppice]

In the 70s it was cool to be digital, as it was really hard to do things digitally.

Was it? Every idiot can count to one.

Yet hardly anyone could do anything complex digitally, and most analogue people were scared to even try. Doing DSP in the 1970s had most analogue people treating you like a wizard.

[TimFox]

Years ago, when analog computing was just getting good and digital computing was still clunky, there was a saying that a digital computation was fast to set up and slow to operate, but that an analog computation was slow to set up (pots, jumper wires, etc.) yet gave the result almost immediately.
Back in 1968, one of my professors set up a vacuum-tube Heathkit analog computer (simple 6AN8 op amps) to show a ball bounce across the screen of an X-Y oscilloscope.  Since the negative excursion was clipped, the ball flattened when it touched the imaginary floor.

[RJSV]

   I'm thinking, (bot or no), that WORD maybe got hijacked, to mean in current day:
   'Something contrary, to social trends and technology,
and often associated with counter cultural music.'
   Makes me recall, the whole 1996 Seattle grunge thing.  In this sense, the technology definition gets lost, I.E. the continuous nature, of analog signals.

[boB]

Even electric cars still use analog wheels for some reason. Perhaps digital isn't for everything?

Unless you get a flat tire.  But even then,  they are only digital on one side 

[schmitt trigger]

Even electric cars still use analog wheels for some reason. Perhaps digital isn't for everything?

Unless you get a flat tire.  But even then,  they are only digital on one side 

They become stuck in a low state.

[Capernicus]

Digital has taken over electronics because the cost of building and connecting transistors and to a lesser extent diodes, resistors and capacitors has dropped through the floor.  A single transistor in a large CPU or memory chip literally costs less than a millionth of a cent.  As a result many of the problems which used to be done "analog" are cheaper and easier to implement in digital form.

But analog remains cool.  Many of the reasons have been enumerated in prior posts.  Another which has not been mentioned is that with enough creativity and effort complex results can be achieved with very simple circuits.  If you are willing to embrace non-linear effects much can be accomplished with one or two transistors.  Only rarely will these solutions be widely applied because large scale manufacture is difficult.  But nothing can replace the satisfaction of doing something unique.

I still think if its home made, analogue is the way to go,   digital is actually harder if ur doing it yourself... if u know how to do it analogue, its less parts.
Maybe its more taxing on the mind tho?  and counting to 1 is easier mathematically.

[ataradov]

I still think if its home made, analogue is the way to go,   digital is actually harder if ur doing it yourself...

Show us the most complicated analog design of yours or stop spreading this nonsense.

Analog is only less parts for absolutely trivial stuff.

[Nothing]

I'm not sure where you're seeing people raving about analog. Or what analog circuits in particular you're talking about. Whether it's in the context of audio, which I can understand. Or if it's just in terms of whether analog circuits are better than digital circuits in general. In which case I say apples and oranges. There are some applications that analog circuits are better suited for and likewise there are applications digital circuits are better suited for. You're probably not going to be a digit differentiator or integrator. And likewise, an analog logic gate is not very practical. (analog computers don't use any such logic in, general.

[Capernicus]

I still think if its home made, analogue is the way to go,   digital is actually harder if ur doing it yourself...

Show us the most complicated analog design of yours or stop spreading this nonsense.

Analog is only less parts for absolutely trivial stuff.

compare an analogue divider to a digital divider.  i rest my case.

as long as its a mathematical operation, analogue will completely destroy the digital equivilent,  its only when the compute becomes boolean where they are the same.

[ataradov]

What case? What divider? You are a just a troll.

[Capernicus]

if you just have two wires, some of current goes down, and some goes down the other in 2 weighted components of the original amount of electricity.

And some could possibly say... it could be a division,  not just a virtual division, but a division in the practical universe. happening actually physically, something has divided!

And u can take advantage of that, to compute things with.

And thats the what the difference is, between hardware and software.

[tggzzz]

In the 70s it was cool to be digital, as it was really hard to do things digitally.

Was it? Every idiot can count to one.

Yet hardly anyone could do anything complex digitally, and most analogue people were scared to even try. Doing DSP in the 1970s had most analogue people treating you like a wizard.

Or stating that what you were going to achieve was impossible. Classic example was using a signal that was buried in the noise - or at least looked that way if you didn't understand the meaning of signal in Shannon's equation. Still looks like magic on a scope

[rsjsouza]

Try finding a new high frequency PNP transistor; the old ones were better. Even JFETs are becoming rarer.

The golden parts still exist but are inside ICs, where it is easier to refine a circuit when you have complete control of all its surrounding parts as well.
 

[tggzzz]

Try finding a new high frequency PNP transistor; the old ones were better. Even JFETs are becoming rarer.

The golden parts still exist but are inside ICs, where it is easier to refine a circuit when you have complete control of all its surrounding parts as well.

if you can't see and use a tree in a forest, does it exist? Or something like that

[rsjsouza]

Try finding a new high frequency PNP transistor; the old ones were better. Even JFETs are becoming rarer.

The golden parts still exist but are inside ICs, where it is easier to refine a circuit when you have complete control of all its surrounding parts as well.

if you can't see and use a tree in a forest, does it exist? Or something like that

They are mere projections on a wall, where you can only see their effects but not interact with them directly...

[Siwastaja]

What case? What divider? You are a just a troll.

I don't think it's a troll, it's either a computer program (a bot) or a mental health case, and the fact this auto-nonsense-generation bot is still running after more than a year of non-stop nonsense, tells a lot about the nonexistence of moderation on this forum.

[tooki]

digital computers put log complexity on what analogue does.

Analogue works in a single bus, to do its arithmetic,  you can do multiplies with voltage dividers,  takes up alot less space.

It makes way more sense to make an analogue computer than a digital one when it comes to space takeup.

Analogue pong is 10 times smaller than digital pong.

Utter nonsense. You can do digital pong in a single IC these days if you want. Implemented as an ASIC, it could be small enough to be nearly invisible.

If analog computers made any sense any more, we’d still make them. On the contrary, they went extinct decades ago.

[vk6zgo]

In the 70s it was cool to be digital, as it was really hard to do things digitally. Gradually it became easier to do a wide range of things digitally, the stuff most engineers found really hard (like DSP) became reusable packages, and there was something of a revitalisation of analogue as the clever stuff only a niche group of engineers was good at. Its surprising how few semiconductor vendors really excel at analogue any more, and its usually for places digital can't go, like super low noise signal conditioning. Still, they are enough to serve the market.

Try finding a new high frequency PNP transistor; the old ones were better. Even JFETs are becoming rarer.

And try mentioning MOSFETs to the youngsters of today, & they think you are referring to big, clunky power switching devices. Most of my old ham stuff has a multitude of dual gate MOSFETs  in the RF/IF.

[SL4P]

Think,of analog TV vs digital…
You remember the ‘ghosts’ of multi path reception..?

Moving to digital brought the  ‘digital cliff’ which introduced the concept of it works, or it doesn’t.

The signal integrity is guaranteed from end to end with digital, but may be compromised in a million ways with an analog signal.

Apart from reflections, consider noise, gai and other transient interruptions and distortion if the input signal before it gets to the output.

[james_s]

Analog TV was in many ways superior, I haven't watched broadcast TV in quite a few years but I played with it when digital first appeared and marveled at the picture quality when conditions were ideal but when they are not ideal the picture drops out completely  or gets severely distorted with the audio cutting out and that is far more annoying than a little snow. It's largely the reason portable TVs are not really a thing anymore. Given most people don't even know you can receive HD channels over the air I think they should have just kept the analog broadcasts going and used digital on cable and satellite services. Billions of perfectly good devices were rendered next to useless when analog was switched off and for what?