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Analog was before, though. General computing was never realized using those architectures; granted, they were mechanical in nature, so that is a big ask, both figuratively and literally.

Maybe we could create continuous-valued electrical computers, but at least state, stability and error detection are going to be giant hurdles. Also, programming GUIs from Gaussian splats sounds like fun in the negative sense.



You've just described vacuum tube computers as well as all the early transistorized computers. Digital computing is a relatively late concept


The important difference is that all those early analog computers were either bespoke or suited for a very narrow subset of tasks, like fire control computers. They were very far from general purpose computers, and that is the reason the von Neumann architecture dominates today: we are free to change the operation of the computer without literally changing gears or re-wiring all logic paths. Before, the hardware was the software.


Of course there were analog 'computers' but vacuum tubes were also used to realize digital computers in the early days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum-tube_computer


You have to withdraw from the binary in all senses to begin to imagine what an analog spatial differences measurement could function as.

Again, think software first. The brain is always a byproduct of the processes, though it is discerned as a materialist operation.

Think big, binary computers are toys in the gran scheme of things.




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