Early (pre integrated circuit/microprocessor) computers worked with lots of wires, relays, and switches. They don't have "storage" or "memory" per se, but doesn't the sequencing and "logic" that EM's perform using electricity kind of make them rudimentary analog "computers"? Interested in others' thoughts on this.
Yes. 
Relays can act as buffers, short and long-term memory.
The score motor handles some calculations (mechanically).
Steppers handle addition or subtraction.
For a much more obvious version, look into bingo pinballs. They have to store and use a massive amount of state as well as provide (hardware) randomization and much more.
The main difference being that computers are programmable, while an EM is hard wired. But the principle is the same, and knowing how to program helps me understand the logic of an EM.
Here's a general purpose computer built from relays --
Quoted from dr_nybble:The main difference being that computers are programmable, while an EM is hard wired. But the principle is the same, and knowing how to program helps me understand the logic of an EM.
Here's a general purpose computer built from relays --
You program it with dynamic spherical steel input devices!
Quoted from bingopodcast:Yes.
Relays can act as buffers, short and long-term memory.
The score motor handles some calculations (mechanically).
Steppers handle addition or subtraction.
For a much more obvious version, look into bingo pinballs. They have to store and use a massive amount of state as well as provide (hardware) randomization and much more.
Glad I didn't make this up then! Would have thought bingos would be simpler, not more complex than pinballs. BTW, I met you a few years ago at the York Show...good to run into you again. Just got your book too 
Quoted from rod90:How many states are you talking about? An EM contact has only two states. That makes it digital.
That's very interesting. I didn't think of it like that. But would that make it digital, binary, or both?
The state storage in an EM is discrete -- steppers (0-9, 0-50, etc.), relays (0/1). The amount of storage in an EM is very small, but early SS also have a perhaps surprisingly small amount of RAM too.
It even occurs to me that a switch is handled like an interrupt, a relay usually locks on to process it since the switch closure is transitory.
Quoted from dr_nybble:The main difference being that computers are programmable, while an EM is hard wired. But the principle is the same, and knowing how to program helps me understand the logic of an EM.
Here's a general purpose computer built from relays --
There are lib/con adjustment plugs, so their 'program' can be modified... a little bit.
Quoted from dr_nybble:The state storage in an EM is discrete -- steppers (0-9, 0-50, etc.), relays (0/1). The amount of storage in an EM is very small, but early SS also have a perhaps surprisingly small amount of RAM too.
It even occurs to me that a switch is handled like an interrupt, a relay usually locks on to process it since the switch closure is transitory.
Every pf switch invokes a sub routine (relay), with some nesting, one routine calls another
I say they're digital due to having only on/off for the most part.
For a real example of an analog computer, look at an old-style electric meter on the side of a house. It has a spinning disk that spins faster if more current is being drawn. Over time, it measures "the area under the curve" where the X-axis is time and the Y-axis is current flow.
.................David Marston
Quoted from NeonNoodle:Early (pre integrated circuit/microprocessor) computers worked with lots of wires, relays, and switches. They don't have "storage" or "memory" per se, but doesn't the sequencing and "logic" that EM's perform using electricity kind of make them rudimentary analog "computers"? Interested in others' thoughts on this.
I like to call them “Difference Engines”
Quoted from pinwiztom:Pinball machines are just big adding machines.
What’s 10,000 plus 1,000? Let me hit that drop target to find out!
Each individual game played on a pinball machine is just a series of events. I’d have to say it’s so complicated that an EM is kinda of a computer.
Quoted from pinwiztom:Pinball machines are just big adding machines.
Even though electronic calculators are digital, they are usually considered to be a computer only if they are programmable. So yes I'd say an EM pinball is an analog non-programmable calculator... or an electromechanical adding machine
Quoted from frenchmarky:Even though electronic calculators are digital, they are usually considered to be a computer only if they are programmable. So yes I'd say an EM pinball is an analog non-programmable calculator... or an electromechanical adding machine
https://byjus.com/physics/difference-between-analog-and-digital/
Are you sure about this?
Quoted from rod90:https://byjus.com/physics/difference-between-analog-and-digital/
Are you sure about this?
Analog can also mean simply 'a non-digital equivalent'.
An em is digital and uses electro mechanic switches to keep track of the digital computations (zeroes and ones). A modern pin is also digital but uses solid state circuits to do the same.
EM's do not have analog circuits. They're all digital. They're not binary code, but digital is simply a circuit with only 2 states (on off, high low, positive negative).
Modern pins have some analog components that em's didn't have (like potentiometers and rheostats).
So, EM's are all digital, where solid states have both digital and analog circuits.
Quoted from Electronmagic:digital is simply a circuit with only 2 states
Nit: digital is a circuit with discrete states. There need not be only two. Some early computers had three-level states for their internal storage, and even today we find more than two states in e.g. MLC SSDs.
To further confuse things, I see no real reason to assume that "analog" necessarily means continuous states, e.g. when the analog circuit is mirroring some real-world process that itself has only discrete states.
Which is what makes discussions like these so amusing and pointless. Words mean whatever people choose to agree that they mean. Different people can take different meanings for "digital" and "analog" than other different people, and still have successful conversations, as long as they make clear what it is they mean when they use those words.
So is this the answer? When you start a game and everything is resetting, it's actions are not analog. But once the ball is in play (even if the player doesn't do anything after that), the ball is the unpredictable real-world analog element of the machine taken as a whole. An electromechanical digital computer but it's being fed instructions from the, uh, analog ball. I mean if you're talking about the entire machine and not just the internals. As opposed to a video game where the human is the only element determining what the computer does or doesn't do, but the human is not part of the 'machine'.
Quoted from Isochronic_Frost:You program it with dynamic spherical steel input devices!
Stealing this.
A pinball is a finite state machine. It contains elements that hold a state, and inputs that are evaluated to determine its next state. Lots of machines are based upon these principles including computers. The Enigma machine was such a machine. So is a telephone switch or a calculator. While a pinball is not a general purpose computer as we have come to know them, it’s still in the family tree.
Not trying to correct anybody or claim authority
Dave
Quoted from Electronmagic:EM's do not have analog circuits.
Only 99% true. Some games with spin targets have a timer circuit to detect when a spinner has stopped spinning by the criterion that a certain amount of time has elapsed since the last closure of the spinner switch. Also check out the recent discussions about #455 bulbs.
.................David Marston
Quoted from dgAmpGuy:A pinball is a finite state machine. It contains elements that hold a state, and inputs that are evaluated to determine its next state. Lots of machines are based upon these principles including computers. The Enigma machine was such a machine. So is a telephone switch or a calculator. While a pinball is not a general purpose computer as we have come to know them, it’s still in the family tree.
Not trying to correct anybody or claim authority
Dave
This.
As the OP, to follow-up, definitely some great responses here. After reading all of this I'll make the clarification that I was talking about the internal workings of the machine only, and how it keeps track of the game. Also, if I could rephrase my original question it would be "Are EM's Essentially (electro) Mechanical Computers?" or "Are EM's Essentially non-IC (integrated circuit) Computers?". I think the answer to either of these questions would be "yes". I also think the analog, binary, and digital concepts all complicate the situation, but are still fun to discuss.
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