The Analog Computer

I took a course on these when I was an Engineering Student at the U of Illinois, in 1958.

The Engineering school knew about Digital Computers back then, but thought they were too different (which they certainly were). So it bought some Analog Computers, and trained its students (such as myself) on them. These contained vacuum tubes (also about to become obsolete) but small ones, that did not consume too much power.

If any Analog Computers still exist, they must be in a Science Museum somewhere. They consisted of a number of analog components - for addition/subtraction, multiplication. division, and differentiation/integration (for doing Calculus problems). These were connected together by cables (like telephone switchboards of the time).

When a student was assigned a problem, a big part of the answer (that he was graded on) was how all the cables were connected.