[sdiy] Is everything digital?

[Scott Gravenhorst]

This is an example of what I mean by "it matters".  For Tim's system, the
states matter, they are reliably identifiable by the system.  The system
is digital as well as quantized.  

Things can be quantized without being digital, such as my example of a
sawtooth composed of quantum steps that don't matter.  That is quantized,
not digital.  Moreover, I think it's important that these words have
boundaries, without them, they lose their meaning.

Glen <mclilith at charter.net> wrote:
>At 12:59 PM 5/14/2005 , Tim Daugard wrote:
>>
>>> My electronics education taught me that "digital" circuitry had a
>>discrete
>>> number of normal states (that is, ignoring any malfunction of the
>>> equipment, etc). By far, the most common digital circuitry in use
>>today is
>>> binary digital circuitry. There should be no reason we couldn't
>>> *theoretically* have digital circuitry with a billion possible voltage
>>> states. I've personally seen trinary digital circuitry, and I'm sure
>>that
>>> other circuitry has been built with four or more discrete voltage
>>levels.
>>
>>I built a foot pedal switch board that uses trinary "logic". Two wires
>>and ground result in nine distinct states. It uses transistors to set
>>levels and opamps to decode the levels. This is digital? right.
>>
>>> So, perhaps "digital" isn't a totally incorrect word? I would agree
>>that
>>> quantized is also a good term to use.
>>
>>My next switch board projuct was going to go for 8 states on 1 wire and
>>ground. This means I can use a standard guitar cable to control eight
>>signal paths.
>>
>>I don't know who started this conversation - Earthlink was down
>>yesterday and I think I didn't see the orginal message, but I hope I'm
>>on track.
>
>Hi Tim,
>
>I started this, just a short time earlier today. I certainly agree with
>your concept of digital, in regard to the foot pedal switch. So would the
>retired military people who taught me electronics several years ago.
>
>take care,
>Glen
>

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