XPost: rec.arts.sf.tv, rec.arts.tv
From: brucegb@realtime.net
In alt.battlestar-galactica Obveeus wrote:
: "Ken from Chicago" wrote:
:
:> Maybe the show is being written by writers who don't really understand
:> computers. All the talk about analog programs being unduplicatable is
:> silly since we've made analog copies long before computers.
:
They may be referring to the problem with chaos - if you do not
know the precise starting parameters, you can't duplicate the
results.
Think of a suspended magnet being released to swing over many
fixed magnets. You can't predict the path of the suspended magnet,
because you can't accurately know the starting parameters. Minor
differences in starting position can lead to major differences in
the path of the suspended magnet.
:
: I don't think that they are intending to mean 'analog'/'digital' in that
: sense. I think they are going for something closer to 'fuzzy logic'...in
: that the response/solution of a given set of input is not going to be 100%
: predictable. Digital is an exact '1' (yes) or '0' (no) response where as
: Analog is gray area. At least, that is how I was interpretting what they
: meant.
:
Analog computers deal with continuously variable data, rather
than discrete variables. The implication of that is that an analog
computer operates as a parallel machine, else the sampling would
produce discrete data, which is what A/D and D/A converters do.
:
: Computer programs do not always behave the same on different hardware
: platforms.
:
For a variety of reasons. Human error being the biggest reason. :-)
Bruce
--
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"I like bad!" Bruce Burden Austin, TX.
- Thuganlitha
The Power and the Prophet
Robert Don Hughes
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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