Summary

Document published by Applied Dynamics, USA, as an addendum to their manual # 146448 for the MUDPAC analogue computer, which is not in Museum Victoria's collection. Museum Victoria does have a copy of a manual published by the University of Melbourne. MUDPAC stands for Melbourne University Dual Package Analogue Computer.

The addendum extends the already comprehensive documentation of the MUDPAC hardware and its programming and operation. It contains information regarding the patchwork layout, the control panel, overload alarm and auto hold, pendrop and motor start, slave operation and component oven.

An analogue computer works basically with continuous functions, whereas a digital computer operates basically with whole numbers. Continuous function are involved in analyses of systems of electric power, aircraft flight, chemical plant and nuclear reactors. Digital computers were most useful where arithmetic and algebraic operations are involved - for example, in accounting and statistics. In the 1960s, digital computers that could deal with continuous functions were expensive. Later developments saw this change.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, it was uncertain that digital computers had 'won the computer race' over analogue computers.

Physical Description

Ring bound typewritten document and includes printed text, diagrams and circuit diagrams. The covers are faded green.

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