THE ANALOG THING

THE ANALOG THING (THAT) is a high-quality, low-cost, open-source, and not-for-profit cutting-edge analog computer.

THAT allows modeling dynamic systems with great speed, parallelism, and energy efficiency. Its use is intuitively interactive, experimental, and visual. It bridges the gap between hands-on practice and mathematical theory, integrating naturally with design and engineering practices such as speculative trial-and-error exploration and the use of scale models.

Dynamic system modeling on THAT can serve a variety of valuable purposes. It may help understand what is (models of), or it may help bring about what should be (models for). It may be used to explain in educational settings, to imitate in gaming, to predict in the natural sciences, to control in engineering, or it may be pursued for the pure joy of it!

THE ANALOG THING is designed to allow an extensive range of analog computing applications with a small set of calculating elements.

Circuits that perform integration over time.

Circuits that add inputs continously.

Circuits that compare inputs to support conditional functions.

Interfaces that allow daisy-chaining mutiple THATs to create arbitrarily large programs.

Rotary knobs to provide user-defined inputs.

Circuits that multiply inputs continously.

A digital panel meter for precision measurements of values and timing.

An interface for controlling THAT digitally to develop analog-digital hybrid programs.