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What Analog Computers Tell Us About the Past and Future of ComputingFDA177, 2004HT
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Course plan
No of lectures
5 seminars
Recommended for
Recommended for PhD students.
The course was last given
New course
Goals
See Organization and Contents
Prerequisites
Organization
Invited speakers will give seminar papers. Prior to each of their seminars,
speakers will provide students with suggestions for readings as well as an
outline and summary points.
HE Nissen and JM Nyce will cochair the seminars. They will, introduce seminar
speakers and provide overview and introductory material. In a word, the
cochairs will be responsible for providing coherence and continuity. They will
also coedit and contribute to the proceedings (conference papers) that will be
published from the seminar.
Guest speakers will include historians of computers, endusers and developers of
historic analog machines and computer scientists who today are building new
analog machines using innovative theory and materials (extruded plastic, for
example). In brief the seminar would provide students with a variety of
opportunities (from the practical to the theoretical) to explore an alternative
model of computing and computation.
Contents
This seminar will focus on analog computers and computation. While the seminar
will provide a history of these machines and this form of computation, it will
not be limited to these issues. The point of the seminar is to ask questions
like "Given niche requirements, what constitutes appropriate computation and
computers?" With the rise of interest in mobile, pervasive and ubiquitous
computing, questions of this kind have taken on an additional importance and
significance.
There is a growing awareness that accepted, conventional forms of computation
and computers may need to be rethought to address the challenges that are
inherent in moving computers from machine to utility or applicance. The lines
we now draw between input/output, application and representation with digital
machines can be rethought and reengineered with analog computation.
What this seminar offers is an opportunity to look critically at what we have
taken for granted when we mean computation and computers.
Literature
1. Introduction: What are the key concepts?
readings
G. Bateson
1968 Redundancy and Coding. In Animal Communication; Techniques of Study and
Results of Research. (Report on the Wenner Gren Conference on Animal
Communication, held June 13-22, 1965, at Burg Wartenstein, Austria.) Thomas A.
Sebeok, ed., 614-626. Bloomington, Indiana and London: Indiana University
Press.
Transactions-Conference on Cybernetics. New York: Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation.
selections esp v. 7 (1951) 11-52.
S Helms (1991) The Cybernetics Group. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 249-272.
re: Macy Conferences also see
http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/foundations/history2.htm
2. History of Analog Computers
readings
J Dupuy (2000) The Mechanization of the Mind… Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press. selections.
D Mindell (2002) Between Human and Machine… Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press. chap, 11.
L Owens Where Are We Going Phil Morse… Annals of the History of Computing 1996
18.4:34-41.
3. Practitioners/End Users: What is it like to think and work "analog"?
readings
G Hartley (1962) An Introduction to Electronic Analogue Computers. London:
Methuen. selections.
M Johansson Early Analog Computers in Sweden… Annals of the History of
Computing 1996 18.4:27-33.
J Small (2001) The Analogue Alternative. London: Routledge. chaps 3, 7.
4. The Present Day
readings
J. Nyce (1994) Nature's Machine: Mimesis, the Analog Computer and the Rhetoric
of Technology. In Computing With Biological Metaphors. Ray Paton ed., 415-423.
London: Chapman & Hall.
L Rubel The Brain as an Analog Computer, Journal Theoretical Neurobiology 1985
4:73-81.
D Silva Gra The General Purpose Analog Computer and Recursive Functions…
http://www.cs.math.ist.utl.pt/ftp/pub/GracaDS/02-G-MScThesis.pdf
J Mills (1995) Programmable VSLI Extended Analog Computer for Cyclotron Beam
Control. Indiana Univ. Comp. Sci. TR 441.
5 Summary: The Need To Rethink Central Concepts?
Lecturers
Introduction, Concluding seminars Nissen, Nyce + 5
guest speakers/seminars total 7
Examiner
HE Nissen (Lund) and JM Nyce (IDA)
Examination
Students are asked to write a paper - worth three points. Depending on the paper's quality, a student may receive as much as 2 more points. Paper topics are to be discussed with and approved by one of the seminar's faculty members.For the three points, we also expect students to read seminar handouts and to take an intelligent, active part in class discussions.
Credit
3-5 credits
Comments
The readings and speakers may change.
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