Thinking Outside The Box
Before Chris’ lecture I did not understand the meaning of the word analog when it came to technological terms. After the class, when it comes to Analog Computing, I think I have I better understanding of what these words could mean. I consider it Thinking Outside Of The Box of Digital Computing. Now think about how we have become so dependent on our playthings like our laptops and our Iphones, but that is all the biological output of the digital age. From something as simple, or at least what we consider simple, as a calculator to as complex as a database, people in the 17th century and onward had to be thinking…”I have a problem to solve but I live in an age where there is no electronic solution to this problem. How can I fix this?” And what they did was revolutionary at the time; however, I will admit that my coined term of Thinking Outside The Box of Digital Computing is biased. I believe that all ideas about inventions happen because a person thinks outside the idea of the technical norm at that time, or what I would like to call the box. Just think that the idea of what we call a calculator came to life in the 1600s! Now I am not saying that before Blaise Pascal and the invention of the adding machine that people were using their fingers and toes to do math. All I am saying is that inventors had to think differently about how to complete a task in order to created the amazing technologies that they did.