[sdiy] Analog Computers ( again )

[Donald Tillman]

   > From: Aaron Lanterman <lanterma at ece.gatech.edu>
   > Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:38:04 -0500
   > 
   > On Feb 10, 2009, at 11:19 PM, Dave Leith wrote:
   > 
   > > http://ericarcher.net/devices/analog-computer-bouncing-ball/
   > 
   > I think my awesomeometer just saturated.

Dude, it gets better...

My high school had a Heath EC-1 Analog Computer, like this one:

  http://www.heathkit-museum.com/computers/hvmec-1.shtml

And it was a lot of fun.  

One of the examples was a bouncing ball program, similar to this one,
except that in addition it had a resonant biquad filter oscillating,
and the quadrature signal from that was added to the XY output signals
to create the circular image of ball on the oscilloscope.  And there
was a diode across the Y output opamp so the ball would convincingly
squash when it hit the ground.

It was pretty impressive.  And it used up all the opamps on the
"EC-1".

Good times!

  -- Don

-- 
Don Tillman
Palo Alto, California
don at till.com
http://www.till.com