(Topic ID: 327216)

Are EM Machines Essentially Analog Computers?

By NeonNoodle

1 year ago


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    #9 1 year ago
    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.

    #17 1 year ago
    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

    #19 1 year ago

    Analog can also mean simply 'a non-digital equivalent'.

    #23 1 year ago

    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'.

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