Beyond ones and zeroes...revisited

[Baby Astronaut]

In the original post we discussed computers being able to use more than just 1s and 0s. The length of computer instructions needed for any digital task would shrink considerably.

 

Now it might be at that point.

 

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/04/scientists-prov

"Building an analog computer in which you don’t use 1s and 0s and instead use essentially all shades of gray in between is one of the things we’re already working on," says Williams. These computers could do the types of things that digital computers aren’t very good at –- like making decisions, determining that one thing is larger than another, or even learning.

[Joatmon]

In the original post we discussed computers being able to use more than just 1s and 0s. The length of computer instructions needed for any digital task would shrink considerably.

 

Now it might be at that point.

 

http://www.wired.com...scientists-prov

"Building an analog computer in which you don't use 1s and 0s and instead use essentially all shades of gray in between is one of the things we're already working on," says Williams. These computers could do the types of things that digital computers aren't very good at –- like making decisions, determining that one thing is larger than another, or even learning.

 

"Already working on"? Analogue computers have a longer history than digital computers. For example they were used for such tasks as gun laying in WWII. http://www.computerhistory.org/brochures/categories.php

 

 

 

[Baby Astronaut]

"Already working on"? Analogue computers have a longer history than digital computers.

I think the guy meant "working on" an analog computer that is at least equivalent to or better than modern digital computers.

 

Researchers at HP Labs have built the first working prototypes of an important new electronic component that may lead to instant-on PCs as well as analog computers that process information the way the human brain does.

 

The new component is called a memristor, or memory resistor. Up until today, the circuit element had only been described in a series of mathematical equations written by Leon Chua, who in 1971 was an engineering student studying non-linear circuits. Chua knew the circuit element should exist — he even accurately outlined its properties and how it would work. Unfortunately, neither he nor the rest of the engineering community could come up with a physical manifestation that matched his mathematical expression.

 

Thirty-seven years later, a group of scientists from HP Labs has finally built real working memristors, thus adding a fourth basic circuit element to electrical circuit theory, one that will join the three better-known ones: the capacitor, resistor and the inductor.

[Joatmon]

As I understand it the new component is in effect a resistor who's value can be set by altering a voltage. If the voltage is removed the memristor remembers. Therefore the device can be called analogue as it has any value between a maximum and a minimum value and this is retained until power is resumed. (IMO) I suppose for development and experimental purposes you could imagine what you could do with a quantity of ordinary variable resistors if you had all the time in the world. I think saying you could make an analogue computer may be misleading although it undoubtedly would be different to our present digital computers. In any case if you could get the memristor to hold a value that is irrational you would still have the problem of displaying it! I will be interested to see what the boffins can do with it!