In article <Pine.LNX.3.95.980316132720.19589A-
100000_at_behemoth.host4u.net>, Doug Yowza <yowza_at_yowza.com> writes
>To be fair, analog computers can do things digital computers can't. For
>example, a digital computer can only approximate 1.0/3.0 whereas an
>analog box has no trouble with this. Certain ops would also be much
>faster with analog vs. digital, but I'd have to guess that these are
>implementation issues that get lost in the noise.
But a digital computer can represent rational numbers exactly as you
have (e.g. Smalltalk has a rational data type which behaves just like
any other number) but irrational numbers cause problems. But then can
an analogue machine represent irrational numbers exactly?
--
Lawrence Wilkinson ljw_at_formula1.demon.co.uk
The GirlFrendo homepage: http://www.formula1.demon.co.uk/girlfrendo/
"You've got the brains, or so you say, maybe you see things another way"-bis
Received on Mon Mar 16 1998 - 15:21:01 GMT