Differential Analyzer [Transcription of Video]


Kahn: The line of research at MIT culminated in the largest of these machines, the rockerfeller differential analyzer. To give you a sense of scope -- it weighed 100 tons, had 2000 vacuum tubes, a few thousand relays and 150 motors. This machine was built in 1942 and was used for calculating ballistic tables during the war. It was made public in 1945, and, by the time it was shut down by 1950, it was the last of analog machines. It was clear that this was not a particularly fruitful line of research after digital computers began to be developed by the late 1940s.


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