A chronology of analogue computing
Charles Care · Warwick Research Archive Portal (University of Warwick) · 2006
It has become commonplace to apply the terms analogue and digital to various technologies. During the twentieth century, this classification was applied to computing technology and created two very separate technical cultures. From the perspective of twenty-first century technology, analogue computing is often assumed to be a technology with a continuous representation of state. However, analogue computers were originally so-called because they supported the construction of analogies. This paper reviews the history of analogue computing and presents the history as a three-stranded chronology, separating the ideas of analogue computer as a 'continuous' machine from the perspective of the analogue computer as an 'analogy' or 'modelling' machine. Around 1940, these two conceptual identities became entwined, creating the analogue/digital discourse familiar today.