Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff
Home Brew Analog Computer System
GK:
--- Quote from: chickenHeadKnob on June 21, 2013, 08:53:30 am ---
Due to symmetry in the trigonometric functions you can further compress the domain to
--- End quote ---
Yes, of course. You just read the table in the opposite direction for cos instead of sin or sin instead of cos:
woodchips:
Wow, found this post and delayed going to bed by a couple of hours!
Some comments, my interests are in mechanical analogue computers so similar. Have you seen the differential analysers by Vannevar Bush etc in the 1930s? Also an earlier one, 1890s, for calculating tides but I can't at the moment track this down as to the why or how.
What is the current book collection? A list of author, title and brief comments would be useful. Another interest of mine is wind turbines so I have some books on waveforms as regarding electromagnetism, again, similar but not identical.
Hewlett Packard and Tektronix made large screen monitors, occasionally available. I have a HP 143S which works to 15MHz in X and Y. There is also the Kikusui 5121A but that is electromagnetic deflection so 1kHz X and 10kHz Y.
I have some sine cosine pots, somewhere. They were rescued from some 1950s aircraft navigation equipment, mechanical analogue computers.
In post 44 a comment was made about circular slide rules. Find a 1 arc second theodolite for the glass discs and reading method. Another wonderful piece of technology that electronics has consigned to the scrap heap.
Bob
GK:
Hi Bob,
I'll keep an eye out for those X-Y monitors you mention, thanks! I'm not particularly familair with any of the old mechanical analog computers. My book collection is almost exclusively concerned with electronic analog computers. Not sure if it is still of interest, but on the bookshelf I currently have:
1)
Analog and Hybrid Computing
Hyndman, D. E.
2)
Fundamentals of Analog Computers
Weyrick, Robert C.
3)
Analog computer programming
Michael G. Rekoff
4)
Introduction to analog computation
Ashley, J. Robert
5)
Analog Computation and Simulation: Laboratory Approach
Jenness, Roger R.
6)
Introduction to Electronic Analogue Computers
C. A. A. Wass
7)
Analogue Computing at Ultra-High Speed
Donald Mackay
8 )
Computation by Electronic Analogue Computers
Borsky, V. and Matyas, J.,
9)
Electronic Analog Computer Primer
Stice, James E. & Bernet Swanson
10)
Analogue Computers
I. I. ETERMAN
11)
Introduction To Electronic Analog Computers
Warfield, John. N.
12)
Analog/logic computer programming and simulation
Fred J Ricci
13)
Computer Handbook
Huskey, Harry D.
14)
Principles of Analog Computation
Smith, George W. and Roger C. Wood
15)
Basic Analog Computation
Gerald R. Peterson
16)
Analog computation in Engineering Design
Rogers and Connolly
17)
Analog methods
Karplus and Soroka
18)
Analog simulation
Karplus
19)
Hybrid computation
Bekley and Karplus
20)
High Speed analog computers
Tomovic and Karplus
21)
Design fundamentals of analog computer components
R. M. Howe
22)
Analog computation
Albers S. jackson
23)
Electronic analog computers
Korn and Korn
24)
Electronic analog and hybrid computers (DC analog computers)
Korn and Korn
25)
Methods of solving engineering problems using analog computers
Leon Levine
26)
Analog computer techniques
C. L. Johnson
SeanB:
Those vector analysers that were on here a few months ago would have made nice XY monitors, they have equal bandwidth in both channels, and the signal amps inside have sine and cosine generators.
woodchips:
GK, thanks for the book list, only have a couple of them. They are full of calculus and similar and my maths simply isn't up to that.
Had a scrummage in the library and the following might be of interest. Again, more towards mechanical analogue computers or electromagnetism but if you see them for a £ (or local currency of course) or two then worth buying, I reckon anyway.
1)
Electronic Digital Integrating Computers, Digital Differential Analysers - Mayorov
2)
Electronic Computers, Principal & Application - Ivall (trivial level)
3)
Graphical & Mechanical Computation - Lipka
4)
The MIT Radiation Laboratory Series, 28 volumes but in particular
Theory of Servomechanisims - James
Computing Mechanism & Linkages - Svoboda
Components Handbook - Blackburn
Waveforms - Chance
5)
The Journal of the Franklin Institute, articles about the Bush differential analyser
These are electromagnetism books, but might have some ideas for programs to run
6)
Elementary Treatise on Curve Tracing - Frost
7)
Practical Curve Tracing - Duncan
8)
Alternating Current Waveforms - Kemp
9)
Waveform Analysis - Manley
10)
Practical Geometry & Engineering Graphics - Abbott
11)
No particular book but equalisation of telegraph lines, under the ocean etc, not trivial!
Otherwise, I have found one of the sine/cosine pots. It is 14.4k and in a servo size 15 case. Came from a co-ordinate converter used in the navigation system (Green Satin) used in 1950s bomber aircraft, no tolerance specs but must be pretty good. The tide predictor was designed by Thompson, Lord Kelvin, in the 1890s but still can track down the article. Some in the Britannica to give a flavour.
Hope this is of some interest.
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