
Handbook of Analog Computation [pdf] - dave9000
http://www.analogmuseum.org/library/handbook_of_analog_computation.pdf
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TopHand
The first computer I ever owned was an analog computer from Edmund Scientific.
It was fundamentally an electronic slide rule. It had a meter that swung from
a negative value to a positive value. The operator adjusted some
potentiometers so that the meter was nulled. The output was read from the
numbers pointed to by the knobs on the pots. At least that is the way I
remember it working. I don't recall how exactly the equation was entered, but
I think there were some pots for that too.

As far as building your own analog computer, look at op amps. They're called
that because they perform mathematical operations, such as summing,
multiplying, and integration. Of course they do the inverse operations as
well.

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sansnomme
With two op amps you can build a neural network. (Or at least a single
perceptron)

[https://www.nutsvolts.com/magazine/article/the_perceptron_ci...](https://www.nutsvolts.com/magazine/article/the_perceptron_circuit)

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usgroup
Thank you for finding this ; I’m really grateful . I’ve been looking for a
decent book on the topic .

For those still tinkering with analog computers, could you recommend a setup
for a beginner? Something that’d let me build real things that isn’t crazy
expensive (and isn’t just a simulator). Is there something like a RPi for
analog computing?

~~~
Junk_Collector
So one of the neat things about Analog computers is that you get a lot of kick
out of "simple" circuit designs. All you need to reproduce everything in the
handbook is a bread board, a power supply, and an oscilloscope for output. You
can get the individual components from Ada Fruit, Digikey, Mauser, and more.
Depending on where you live you can even pick them up locally. Fry's and
Microcenter being the two biggest chains that still stock opamps and the like.

If you don't even want to hassle with all of that, then you can look into
something like the Elenco electronic playground for $50 which has most of what
you need mounted and then you just jumper, ala the old analog computers.

If you wanted to get really advanced, you would want to go to something like
the guys at [https://www.xmicrowave.com/](https://www.xmicrowave.com/) make,
but that gets awfully spendy on a hobby budget.

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amelius
I'd like to see an FPGA, but for analog circuits.

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ethhics
Like an FPAA?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-
programmable_analog_arra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-
programmable_analog_array)

~~~
philpem
I remember reading about the Anadigm FPAAs, but I don't recall finding anyone
who sold them.

The Cypress pSOC series is fairly similar (programmable analog blocks mated to
a Cortex-M microcontroller core) and easier to find on sale. I'd argue that
it's also more useful in modern mixed-signal designs.

