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THE ANALOG WORLD—FICTIONAL AND REAL
Analog gets a bad rap, even in popular culture.
In movies, TV shows, and magazines, people
are told that analog is dirty and old fashioned,
and that digital is clean and modern. In an
ad from one of the electronics superstores,
for example, a guy gets dumped for being
“too analog”. In The Teeth of the Tiger by
Tom Clancy1, readers are told that
“ The world was not digital, after all—it was an
analog reality, always untidy, always with loose ends that could never
be tied up neatly like shoelaces, and so it was possible to trip and fall
with every incautious step.” (page 172);
“ The world, one had to remember, was analog, not digital, in the way
it operated. And analog actually meant sloppy.” (page 286);
“ I think that we can depend on that.” “Yeah, unless he got an unexpected
phone call, or he saw something in the morning paper that caught his
interest, or his favorite shirt wasn’t properly pressed. Reality is analog,
Sam, not digital, remember?” (page 316).
Clancy is right—the world is analog. But that doesn’t make it dirty,
unpredictable, or imprecise. While digital signals are limited by finite
resolution, analog signals can have infinite resolution, limited only
by noise or quantum effects. Analog signal processing can respond
nearly instantaneously, without the computational delays inherent
to digital signal processing. Analog circuitry can often operate at far
lower power levels than digital circuitry providing the same function.
Yet it is difficult to maintain the speedy, pristine nature of an analog
signal through further signal processing for communications or
storage, especially over long distances, in hostile environments, or
over extended periods of time. Thus, the world needs precision data
converters, high-speed operational amplifiers, power management
components—and the expertise to use them.
E-mail: 
info@telesys.ru
