Bernd Ulmann - Böcker

As classic digital computers are about to reach their physical and architectural boundaries, interest in unconventional approaches to computing, such as quantum and analog computers, is rapidly increasing. For a wide variety of practical applications, analog computers can outperform classic digital computers in terms of both raw computational speed and energy efficiency. This makes them ideally suited a co-processors to digital computers, thus forming hybrid computers. This second edition of "Analog and Hybrid Computer Programming" provides a thorough introduction to the programming of analog and hybrid computers. It contains a wealth of practical examples, ranging from simple problems such as radioactive decay, harmonic oscillators, and chemical reaction kinetics to advanced topics which include the simulation of neurons, chaotic systems such as a double-pendulum simulation and many more. In addition to these examples, it contains a chapter on special functions which can be used as "subroutines" in an analog computer setup.

Analog computing is one of the main pillars of Unconventional Computing. Almost forgotten for decades, we now see an ever-increasing interest in electronic analog computing because it offers a path to high-performance and highly energy-efficient computing. These characteristics are of great importance in a world where vast amounts of electric energy are consumed by today’s computer systems. Analog computing can deliver efficient solutions to many computing problems, ranging from general purpose analog computation to specialised systems like analog artificial neural networks. The book “Analog Computing” has established itself over the past decade as the standard textbook on the subject and has been substantially extended in this second edition, which includes more than 300 additional bibliographical entries, and has been expanded in many areas to include much greater detail. These enhancements will confirm this book’s status as the leading work in the field. It covers the history of analog computing from the Antikythera Mechanism to recent electronic analog computers and uses a wide variety of worked examples to provide a comprehensive introduction to programming analog computers. It also describes hybrid computers, digital differential analysers, the simulation of analog computers, stochastic computers, and provides a comprehensive treatment of classic and current analog computer applications. The last chapter looks into the promising future of analog computing.

Analog and hybrid computing are two central pillars in the field of unconventional computing. Almost forgotten for decades, interest in these technologies is rapidly rising as they offer a viable path to high-speed and highly energy-efficient computing for the 21st century for a variety of applications ranging from high performance computing, edge computing, medical applications, etc., to artificial intelligence.Their high speed and high energy efficiency are of utmost importance in a time where vast amounts of electric energy are consumed by classic digital computers especially in the ever growing field of artificial intelligence and large language models.The book "Analog Computing" has established itself over the past decade as the standard textbook on the subject as refl ected in this third edition, which has been substantially extended over the previous editions. The bibliography alone has been expanded to well over 1000 entries making it a resource in itself for research and learning.The book covers the history of analog computers from the Antikythera mechanism to recent developments of reconfi gurable systems. It also includes a wide variety of worked examples showing basic programming techniques for analog computers. In addition to this, reconfigurable analog and hybrid computers as well as digital differential analyzers are also discussed in detail.A large portion is devoted to the discussion of classic and current analog and hybrid computer applications. The last chapter gives an outlook into the highly promising future of these fascinating machines.