Electronics > Beginners

What's the use of OpAmps?

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David Hess:

--- Quote from: tggzzz on April 28, 2019, 05:38:22 pm ---My school math teacher had an interesting discussion with him about whether or not digital computers would supplant analogue and hybrid computers.
--- End quote ---

I remember when digital multipliers caught up with analog multipliers in precision and speed.  Everybody who understood Moore's Law knew that it was only a matter of time before digital computing completely outperformed analog computing.

tggzzz:

--- Quote from: IDEngineer on April 28, 2019, 06:19:44 pm ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on April 28, 2019, 05:38:22 pm ---My school math teacher had an interesting discussion with him about whether or not digital computers would supplant analogue and hybrid computers.
--- End quote ---
There was a time when folks wondered if this newfangled "electronics" thing would supplant hydraulic circuitry. No, that is not a typo.

--- End quote ---

I once (1983) had a consultancy contract into exactly that.

My conclusion was that replacing the hydraulic logic was too difficult and with insufficient benefit. I included the possibility of remote measurement and control, well before the internet per se existed.

The application domain: off shore unmanned oil platforms where there was currently zero electricity, for obvious reasons.

tggzzz:

--- Quote from: David Hess on April 28, 2019, 11:17:18 pm ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on April 28, 2019, 05:38:22 pm ---My school math teacher had an interesting discussion with him about whether or not digital computers would supplant analogue and hybrid computers.
--- End quote ---

I remember when digital multipliers caught up with analog multipliers in precision and speed.  Everybody who understood Moore's Law knew that it was only a matter of time before digital computing completely outperformed analog computing.

--- End quote ---

Indeed. That was my maths teacher's opinion, and the person at the university didn't have their heart in a counter-argument.

As a knowingly incompetent schoolkid, I found that interplay fascinating and revealing.

IDEngineer:

--- Quote from: David Hess on April 28, 2019, 11:17:18 pm ---I remember when digital multipliers caught up with analog multipliers in precision and speed.  Everybody who understood Moore's Law knew that it was only a matter of time before digital computing completely outperformed analog computing.
--- End quote ---
There's always the quantization error of digital as compared to analog. But that becomes an argument between "number of bits" versus "signal to noise ratio".

vk6zgo:

--- Quote from: 0culus on April 28, 2019, 05:38:05 am ---A neat historical note; before solid state op amps existed, there were vacuum tube op amps:



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Interestingly, "scale of 2" binary dividers ( plain old bi-stables) were made in an almost identical format.
Apparently they used them in tube type computers.

I never saw any "in the flesh", all the TV SPGs used individual 12AT7s or similar.

Some early SPGs used special "black magic"  divide by 5 or 10 stages, but they had to be "babied" to get them to work properly.

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