An analog computer (spelled analogue in British English) is a form of computer that uses the continuously-changeable aspects of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved. In contrast, digital computers represent varying quantities incrementally, as their numerical values change.
Mechanical analog computers were very important in gun fire control in World War II and the Korean War;...
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An analog computer (spelled analogue in British English) is a form of computer that uses the continuously-changeable aspects of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved. In contrast, digital computers represent varying quantities incrementally, as their numerical values change.
Mechanical analog computers were very important in gun fire control in World War II and the Korean War; they were made in significant numbers. In particular, development of transistors made electronic analog computers practical, and before digital computers had developed sufficiently, they were commonly used in science and industry.
Analog computers can have a very wide range of complexity. Slide rules and nomographs are the simplest, while naval gun fire control computers and large hybrid digital/analogue computers were among the most complicated. Digital computers have a certain minimum (and relatively great) degree of complexity that is far...
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