This made me think of engines as computers- the crank shaft connected to the timing belt goes up to the camshafts to instantly calculate the positions of the valves.
Likewise, an automatic transmission is a hydraulic computer.
Basic Mechanisms In Fire Control Computers (1953) [video]
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Re: Basic Mechanisms In Fire Control Computers (1953) [video]
#22This is a great primer on one facet of the Navy and "technology". So much of early computing has some tie back to the navy. It isn't an accident that Grace Hopper was an admiral and not a General. Much of Cray's early work is littered with "Navy" (including his transfer from Europe to the Pacific). It's a fascinating bit of WWII and Post war history that is worth exploring.
That history extends back the other direction too with mechanical tide prediction machines, or even early marine chronometers for navigation - the OGps if you will.
Re: Basic Mechanisms In Fire Control Computers (1953) [video]
#23my head canon is that in the Dune universe, their response to the Butlerian Jihad was to develop better and better mechanical computers; specifically, via miniaturization, down to the nanometer level. It doesn't quite work for everything (Holtzmann shields are entirely analog?) but it works well enough to map most objects to a viable analog controller made of nanometer-scale analog computers.
Re: Basic Mechanisms In Fire Control Computers (1953) [video]
#24In 1989 I was a data systems tech on a Destroyer going through some overhaul at the shipyard in Pascagoula Mississippi. Moored right next to us was the battleship Wisconsin. Huge relic from WW2 but still going through modernization. A bunch of us that worked on combat systems got invited for a tour of their fire control systems.
Wow. Just wow. All mechanical computers calculating fire control solutions for the big 16 inch guns. The guys giving the tour were well beyond the age for regular military retirement. Come to find out, they were all reactivated because practical knowledge of the mechanical computers had since left the navy. That was a very cool day.
Re: Basic Mechanisms In Fire Control Computers (1953) [video]
#25The US Navy's old training materials are fantastic for learning about various technologies. I think their masterpiece is "Basic Hand Tools" a handbook written in plain English that describes the use of practically every hand tool ever invented. "Basic Hand Tools" on the hammer: >Whoever conceived the idea of cracking a nut with a rock unknowingly invented a tool. When a later genius tied a stick to the rock, he inven…
NEETS is another to add to the list. A quite literal full stack guide to electronics from the basis of matter up.
Re: Basic Mechanisms In Fire Control Computers (1953) [video]
#26Thought it was very interesting to see the precursors of modern computers and how they achieved the various mathematical functions mechanically
And fascinating too that, unlike digital computers where operations take clock cycles, calculations in an analog computer are effectively instantaneous.
It's better than that. As an analog computer, both the inputs and outputs are _continuous_. So it's possible to get down to very small deltas that are only limited by the internal precision of the system itself, and the precision of measuring those inputs and outputs.
At the same time, precision is dictated by machining tolerances for the instruments in the calculation chain, as well as any mechanical forces in play at the time. Even the temperature of parts can change the dimensions of parts which can introduce error. And then there's the accumulation of error across a deep enough mechanical "pipeline".
What really gets me is how there is this tradeoff between analog and digital computers. Digital systems don't have precision errors from miss-shaped parts, but instead opt for errors in quantization (digitization) instead.
Re: Basic Mechanisms In Fire Control Computers (1953) [video]
#27The US Navy's old training materials are fantastic for learning about various technologies. I think their masterpiece is "Basic Hand Tools" a handbook written in plain English that describes the use of practically every hand tool ever invented. "Basic Hand Tools" on the hammer: >Whoever conceived the idea of cracking a nut with a rock unknowingly invented a tool. When a later genius tied a stick to the rock, he inven…
Not just military training videos, older ones in general are often superior to what gets made today. My favorite is probably this one on vehicle differentials:
Re: Basic Mechanisms In Fire Control Computers (1953) [video]
#28The US Navy's old training materials are fantastic for learning about various technologies. I think their masterpiece is "Basic Hand Tools" a handbook written in plain English that describes the use of practically every hand tool ever invented. "Basic Hand Tools" on the hammer: >Whoever conceived the idea of cracking a nut with a rock unknowingly invented a tool. When a later genius tied a stick to the rock, he inven…
NEETS is another to add to the list. A quite literal full stack guide to electronics from the basis of matter up.
"Navy Electricity and
Electronics Training Series"
Re: Basic Mechanisms In Fire Control Computers (1953) [video]
#29This made me think of engines as computers- the crank shaft connected to the timing belt goes up to the camshafts to instantly calculate the positions of the valves.
The speedometer on most cars is a kilometers - miles - kilometers calculator.
Re: Basic Mechanisms In Fire Control Computers (1953) [video]
#30In 1989 I was a data systems tech on a Destroyer going through some overhaul at the shipyard in Pascagoula Mississippi. Moored right next to us was the battleship Wisconsin. Huge relic from WW2 but still going through modernization. A bunch of us that worked on combat systems got invited for a tour of their fire control systems. Wow. Just wow. All mechanical computers calculating fire control solutions for the big 16…
I remember seeing one of those computers on Wisconsin, but I only saw it after decommission, as a museum piece. Those computers are truly mind boggling, if you're reading this and you're close to Norfolk you should visit battleship Wisconsin.