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The Analog Thing: Analog Computing for the Future

(the-analog-thing.org)
108 points cgeier | 2 comments | 19 Nov 24 17:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.421s | source
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zachbee ◴[19 Nov 24 20:57 UTC] No.42188008[source]▶
It's a cute toy and a fun educational tool, but "computing for the future" seems like a bit of an overstatement.
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sushid ◴[19 Nov 24 21:41 UTC] No.42188403[source]▶
I think they're saying analog computers could be the future of computing.

Veritasium explains it really well in general here (and demos the device) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVsUOuSjvcg

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1. tgv ◴[20 Nov 24 07:14 UTC] No.42191463[source]▶
I don't see it. Any non trivial analog computation involves a very large circuit, which has the problems of normal programming (bugs) and graphic programming (write-only), but with the extra pitfalls of electronics (resistance, delay, the resulting oscillations). And then you have to read all the outputs. That's going to be slow and expensive to build.

In what concrete problems do you (or Veritasium) think analog computing could beat a GPU?

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2. lagrange77 ◴[20 Nov 24 23:08 UTC] No.42199095[source]▶
> In what concrete problems do you (or Veritasium) think analog computing could beat a GPU?

Solving (systems of) ODEs without the issues that can arise from numerical solving like numerical instability. Oh and it does that instantaneously.