Re: Full circle
If simple analogue electronics can perform better than it's very complex digital equivalent at a similar task then it suggests we must re-evaluate where we are heading
...
When I was turned 9 (in the very early 1970's) my parent's birthday present was a "100 in one" electronics kit based on my (way too obvious to them) interest in electricity...
Before I received this electronics kit I had done many stupid and dangerous things (in retrospect) a few months before with "240V AC mains" like digging out the wall-mounted socket to see how it worked and connecting my sister's battery-powered food-mixer toy into the Mains socket (thinking that it would go faster!) after destroying said "food-mixer" and getting the wires to the battery compartment inserted into the Mains socket!
Needless to say a big bang from the food-processor and sudden darkness (didn't know about fuses) OOPS!
I also looked inside the radios and TV's my parents had (for which I was not found out - I did tell them a decade or two later)
My parents immediately knew the cause (which obviously I tried to deny to no avail) and I was in deep-sh*t for months - but I got that "100 in one" electronics kit...
Learned all about NPN and PNP Transistors, Diodes, Resistors, Capacitors and the difference between a battery and a cell...
My Dad even helped me when I built the "Crystal Radio" part of the kit by putting up a 30-odd-foot piece of wood with wire attached so so that the "Crystal Radio" worked with a good audio volume!
I absolutely loved this analogue electronics...
Around 17 years of age a friend of mine showed me an "electronic computer" - around an A4 sized circuit board with a small number if "Integrated Circuits", four seven-segment LEDs, 256 bytes of "RAM" and 10(?) switches
Didn't understand what was meant by "Integrated Circuit" or "RAM" but my friend showed me how, by manipulating the switches in a convoluted pattern he could get the display to say "boob" after much flashing of the LEDs
I was Hooked and "the digital world" became my career...
But I lament the day where everything analogue became digital...
The "Transistor Radio", a simple and obvious extension of the "Crystal Radio" - Digital Radios are so boring in comparison - a "black blob" and "nothing obvious" about how it works...
Pretty much the same for all current electronics - no avenue for curiosity as it is ALL "black blobs"
Analogue world we live in so analogue WILL rule :)