Author Topic: The Death of Analog  (Read 36590 times)

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Offline JozefTopic starter

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The Death of Analog
« on: June 08, 2013, 04:55:30 pm »
With the advances in digital electronics and all the tiny devices and applications that all are digital, I can confidently say analog electronics will disappear and become an ancient useless technology that has no single application, exactly like the dirty vacuum tubes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_to_Analog  O0
 

Online tom66

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #1 on: June 08, 2013, 04:59:22 pm »
I can confidently say you are completely wrong. Analog will not die for a long, long time -- if it does die, it will only be because electronics have been obsoleted by something like photonics.
 

Online xrunner

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #2 on: June 08, 2013, 05:02:11 pm »
Oh this thread is going to be fun!  :box:
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Offline firewalker

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #3 on: June 08, 2013, 05:09:50 pm »
Digital is just an expression of analog.

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Offline don.r

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #4 on: June 08, 2013, 05:11:37 pm »
Exactly. Underlying all digital is analog. If analog dies, so does digital.
 

Online Mechatrommer

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #5 on: June 08, 2013, 05:31:27 pm »
no... both analog and digital will die... arduino will rise! otoh...

Oh this thread is going to be fun!  :box:
With the advances in digital electronics and all the tiny devices and applications that all are digital, I can confidently say analog electronics will disappear and become an ancient useless technology that has no single application, exactly like the dirty vacuum tubes.
this statement will come out of people who lost their trail (history). its like saying, human will die because robots are everywhere, or PC will die because tablets are everywhere, or we dont need Intelligent Designer because science can do everything.
Nature: Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness (Stephen L. Talbott): Its now indisputable that... organisms “expertise” contextualizes its genome, and its nonsense to say that these powers are under the control of the genome being contextualized - Barbara McClintock
 

Offline SLJ

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #6 on: June 08, 2013, 05:52:55 pm »
Have a 2003 Harley with speedometer and tachometer side by side.  Looking at purchasing another one new that only has a speedometer from the factory.  Asked if I could get it fitted with a tachometer also.  Yes but the refit is a combo digital spedo (w/digits) and tach.  I don't have any desire for digital speedometer on a Harley.  Just doesn't feel right.

As far as analog displays dying out, it wont it will just be different.  Digital will just get to be high enough resolution so it looks like analog in many cases.  Look at some of the new instrument clusters on cars.  High res LCD screens showing a combination of analog/digital instruments.

Offline Fraser

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #7 on: June 08, 2013, 05:58:37 pm »
Consider a range of voltage from 0 to 10V.....

With analogue there are infinite points between and so no sampling issues.

With digital there are not infinite sample points and an element of error may exist ...... digital is therefore an inferior technology  :box:

No point in getting upset about Analogue Vs Digital...they both have their place in the world and I don't see either passing into obscurity any time yet.

I used to laugh when people stated that thermionic valve technology was obsolete and part of history. Completely dead. I suggested they Google Cathode Ray Tube in TV's, Magnetron in Microwave Ovens and X-Ray tubes in medicine, security and industry.

Technology is adapted to the needs of man....very little becomes truly obsolete at the base technology level.

 
« Last Edit: June 08, 2013, 06:04:13 pm by Aurora »
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Offline JozefTopic starter

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #8 on: June 08, 2013, 06:28:12 pm »
Quote
this statement will come out of people who lost their trail (history). its like saying, human will die because robots are everywhere, or PC will die because tablets are everywhere, or we don't need Intelligent Designer because science can do everything.

First there's no such a thing called "Intelligent Designer"

Humans are already got replaced by robots in many industries, do you live on this planet?

And yeah computer will die to be replaced by more advanced digital tablets :)

Oh did not that happen to Oscilloscopes?

Digital circuits at the very low level are analog of course but the technology or the way to approach the problem is different. When we say digital vs. analog we are talking about technologies at higher level not the atomic details of each... |O
 

Offline jahonen

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #9 on: June 08, 2013, 06:29:14 pm »
Consider a range of voltage from 0 to 10V.....

With analogue there are infinite points between and so no sampling issues.

With digital there are not infinite sample points and an element of error may exist ...... digital is therefore an inferior technology  :box:

But electricity is quantized by nature because smallest non-divisible unit of electricity is charge of an electron/proton, about 1.6e-19 C. So there is no perfectly analog signal as such :)

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Janne
 

Offline Kaluriel

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #10 on: June 08, 2013, 06:32:14 pm »
Consider a range of voltage from 0 to 10V.....

With analogue there are infinite points between and so no sampling issues.

With digital there are not infinite sample points and an element of error may exist ...... digital is therefore an inferior technology  :box:

But electricity is quantized by nature because smallest non-divisible unit of electricity is charge of an electron/proton, about 1.6e-19 C. So there is no perfectly analog signal as such :)

Regards,
Janne

then by that logic, a digital signal that has the accuracy of an electron, would be analog. only stretched over time in the case of serial
 

Offline SLJ

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #11 on: June 08, 2013, 06:41:20 pm »
The square wave will replace the sign wave...  :-DD

Offline c4757p

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #12 on: June 08, 2013, 06:42:35 pm »
For a more serious answer, no, analog design will never disappear, because there is extreme crossover between the two. If you want to run a digital signal saying "is the refrigerator door open?" from point A to point B, feel free to string up whatever wire you want wherever you want and pay no attention to anything. Hell, you could use a wet string with a high enough voltage. If you want multiple-Gbps data transfer, that's not digital. It's digital in the transmitter, it's digital in the receiver, but it's an RF analog signal in between, and you'd better have a good grounding in analog and RF circuit design if that signal is going to successfully get anywhere.

Also, try powering your holy-shit-that's-fast processor with a digital signal saying "yes, you are powered". Someone's got to do the power supply.

Sensors.

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Telequipment

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #13 on: June 08, 2013, 06:45:56 pm »
analogue will live on here until I'm dead and gone, even down to my old analogue scope
 

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #14 on: June 08, 2013, 06:47:18 pm »
And here :-+
 

Offline ampdoctor

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #15 on: June 08, 2013, 06:50:50 pm »
For all practical purposes the universe is an analog system. Sure you could argue that on a quantum level it's digital but practically all our senses, the motion of seas and weather, every way in which we interact with the world is analog in nature.  And when it comes right down to it the sole purpose of any electronics product is for human beings to interact with the world in different ways. Therefore the only way analog electronics would ever cease to exist would be if human beings cease to exist.

When I went through school in the 90's the big push was to keep things that are functionally analog in the analog domain and digital in the digital domain.  For example, if we're designing some sort of pressure sensor that measures gradients then collects and stores data at certain intervals. Convert that stuff to digital!  However, if we have an audio signal pass it through the whole system within the analog domain. The concept being that every time we convert information we introduce noise and distortion into the signal path that needs to be dealt with. Currently, it appears that with faster processing power it's convert everything to digital, pass it through a microcontroller of some sort. Write 100k lines of code to process the information and return it to the analog domain only when absolutely necessary.  I don't know which is the better methodology but I sure love my analog electronics! Maybe it's because I can't write code worth a shit.  LOL
 

Offline SeanB

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #16 on: June 08, 2013, 06:59:00 pm »
Only advantage digital has is error correction up to a point, but then it vanishes. Analogue works down to the noise level, or in certain systems well below it.

Your GPS is analogue, with the desired signal buried way down in the noise of the receiver circuitry, but it can be recovered by either digital or analogue means to a point where it can be digital data again.
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #17 on: June 08, 2013, 07:03:05 pm »
With the advances in digital electronics and all the tiny devices and applications that all are digital, I can confidently say analog electronics will disappear and become an ancient useless technology that has no single application, exactly like the dirty vacuum tubes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_to_Analog  O0

Digital is just a very narrowle defined case of analog ...

besides : have you looked at modern digital signals ? if you don't treat them as analog you get nowhere ...
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Offline PA3BNX

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #18 on: June 08, 2013, 07:04:04 pm »
Hello EveryBody,

Analogue versus Digital !

No No No its Analogue to Digital to Analogue for ever I think.

At least in the real world of materials

Digital is an absolute winner in processing data no doubt about that I think.

All digital could be done in abstract thinking and solution finding.
So only here is no analogue involved anymore.
Yust think of math hi thats all digital.




Greetings,

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Offline SLJ

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #19 on: June 08, 2013, 07:06:32 pm »
With the advances in digital electronics and all the tiny devices and applications that all are digital, I can confidently say analog electronics will disappear and become an ancient useless technology that has no single application, exactly like the dirty vacuum tubes.

Except many of those dirty vacuum tubes are still working after 90+ years and most digital only operates because it's fed by analog circuits.

Online Mechatrommer

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #20 on: June 08, 2013, 08:37:07 pm »
First there's no such a thing called "Intelligent Designer"
if you say so...
Humans are already got replaced by robots in many industries, do you live on this planet?
who is more intelligent, the robot or the human? there is no intelligent designer, hence.... human are not intelligent. more so whatever designed by them? ;)
Oh did not that happen to Oscilloscopes?
to the eye of who? the user? or the designer? to user: there is no such thing as analog or digital (product), whats that? they only know whats "beauty" or "ugly". to the designer? analog certainly not dying, from my inspection.
When we say digital vs. analog we are talking about technologies at higher level not the atomic details of each... |O
so do you think you can slap in a certain ps risetime digital chip in a minute and expect the product to work without analog knowledge? without annoying your ham neighboor? is that what you mean? i did help you with a step further (in my earlier post)... arduino guys will rise ;) go to kickstarter and count how many duinos projects there.

anyway... dont take my statements seriosly ;)
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Online nctnico

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #21 on: June 08, 2013, 10:17:30 pm »
With the advances in digital electronics and all the tiny devices and applications that all are digital, I can confidently say analog electronics will disappear and become an ancient useless technology that has no single application, exactly like the dirty vacuum tubes.
Digital is just an abstraction of analog.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline Lightages

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #22 on: June 08, 2013, 10:29:39 pm »
How did the death of analog involve the "debate" of an intelligent creator? I guess it's the same debate amongst the audiophools and sane people. (running and ducking)
 

Offline TheRevva

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #23 on: June 08, 2013, 10:59:15 pm »
...
But electricity is quantized by nature because smallest non-divisible unit of electricity is charge of an electron/proton, about 1.6e-19 C. So there is no perfectly analog signal as such :)
Non-divisible? Hmmm...
Last time I checked the human race had just spent some inordinate amount of money proving the existence of the Higgs Boson (and they're spending a truckload more as we speak on the LHC!).
So, the electron is the 'smallest non-divisible unit of electricity' as far as the accepted 'current theory' (pun intended) is concerned...
I'm willing to take bets that before I die, someone will 'split the electron' just as Rutherford 'split the atom' last century and we'll have a whole NEW bunch of math to comprehend.
A positive upshoot from this will be that our 'digital' systems might be able to make use of the effective increase in resolution thereby helping to assist in the continuation of Moores law.

But I digress...

With my very limited understanding of quarks, I've come up with the following observations.
1: It's apparent that I personally have an oversupply of strange quarks - Everyone is always calling me strange
2: I'm also somewhat concerned about my ratio of up versus down quarks - Perhaps this helps to explain my self-diagnosed bipolarism?  Does anyone here have some spare uppers I can have?  (Perhaps an oversupply of down quarks is the cause of depression? LOL)
3: Perhaps I should refrain from comment on the top versus bottom debate other than to say that SOME guys prefer tits whilst others prefer ass.  Go figure!  Perhaps there is some linkage with the W boson (an obviously mis-spelt bosom!!!)

All this quark talk has really got me in a spin now.  It's time I allowed my mass to rest.

Edit:
BTW, I note with interest that the quarks tend to have 1/3 or 2/3 the electrical charge of an electron.  So much for indivisible huh?
« Last Edit: June 08, 2013, 11:07:48 pm by TheRevva »
 

Online mikeselectricstuff

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Re: The Death of Analog
« Reply #24 on: June 08, 2013, 11:21:47 pm »

...
But electricity is quantized by nature because smallest non-divisible unit of electricity is charge of an electron/proton, about 1.6e-19 C. So there is no perfectly analog signal as such :)
..but the physical position of those electrons in space, or within the atoms of a conductor is analogue, so regarding particles as any kind of digital entity is completely meaningless.
And that's even before we get Mr. Heseinberg involved....
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