Strenuus
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I also learned how to program an analog computer (patch cords, op amps and an oscilloscope for a "monitor") in college. It was actually pretty cool. It was for my numerical analysis class and even then the technology was on the way out. We spent the first half of the semester modeling things like an automotive suspension or an airplane wing on the analog computer and then the same things using digital approximations on a DEC Vax 11/780 the second half of the semester. The analog computer produced these beautiful smooth, multicolored dampened sin waves plots using a pen plotter and the Vax spit out these ugly dot matix graphs that were a bunch of gray asterisks in the general shape of a sin wave.
I think that instilled in me an early bias for all things analog - at least things involving beauty/art. I've always been an early adopter of technology for the sake of trying new things (I bought my first CD player back in 1984 - the same summer I started at IBM), but never sold my turntable and vinyl albums. To this day, although I have CDs and a music server running on a Mac Mini, my vinyl collection is still the largest part of my music library andw hat I turn to when I want to "hear" music (the digital formats are for convenience and streaming through the house on multiple stereos). Same with photography. I use the digital camera (and even my phone) for convenience, but when I want to "make" a photograph, I pull out the large format camera and some sheet film.
BNM
Dude that's awesome. You win life!
