News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on The mechanical Bendix Air Data Computer, part 3: pressure transducers. Parent comment

Re:The mechanical Bendix Air Data Computer, part 3: pressure... by agumonkey on Tuesday January 16, 2024 @05:02PM (#39019765)
What started your journey into analog computers ?

I remember seeing some navy videos from the 40s explaining self tracking guns (through projected geometry parts) and was so enamoured by it. Since then I found out about hydraulic and pneumatic electromechanic devices.

Also, don't you find that programmers are fighting the imperative / von neumann model to recreate what those machines were ? systems of coupled parts "reacting" to each others (looking at you web world).

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The mechanical Bendix Air Data Computer, part 3: pressure... by kens on Tuesday January 16, 2024 @05:14PM (#39019900)
What started my journey? Mainly that a collector gave us this CADC to examine, and it turned out to be more interesting (and complicated) than I expected.

As far as programming models, yes, the imperative model isn't a good fit here. You can think of the CADC as "purely functional" since the outputs are direct functions of the inputs.

[ Parent | on HN ]