[HN Gopher] The mechanical Bendix Air Data Computer, part 3: pre...
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The mechanical Bendix Air Data Computer, part 3: pressure
transducers
Author : picture
Score : 27 points
Date : 2024-01-16 19:48 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.righto.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.righto.com)
| kens wrote:
| Author here, if you have analog computer questions...
| rck wrote:
| This is so cool! Do you know if anyone ever wrote a general-
| purpose "how to program with mechanical parts" kind of
| resource? I've seen technical manuals for specific machines
| (like the navy's Basic Fire Control Mechanisms, OP 1140), but
| haven't found anything more general.
| kens wrote:
| I haven't seen a guide like that, but it would be
| interesting. It amazes me that they were able to get the CADC
| to work, since it is a complicated 3-D task to get all the
| gears to mesh without colliding. Since the gears need to be
| in particular ratios, there are a lot of constraints. The
| clearances in the CADC are very tight, by the way. It was
| hard to reverse-engineer because many gears looked like they
| meshed, but they didn't quite mesh.
| buildsjets wrote:
| One excellent encyclopedia of mechanisms is "Mechanisms in
| Modern Engineering Design", Ivan I. Artobelevsky, USSR
| Academy of Science. Translated by Nicholas Weinstein. 7
| volumes in the Internet Archive at the attached link.
|
| https://mirtitles.org/2018/10/13/mechanisms-in-modern-
| engine...
|
| Also, Cornell University hosts the Reuleaux Collection of
| Mechanisms and Machines. They used to have an excellent
| online resource with descriptions of each mechanism,
| animations of how they operate, and even downloadable CAD
| models. But then Web 3.0 happened and static websites were no
| longer in fashion, so it was taken offline for a refresh
| which was never completed. There are still some remnants
| available on archive.org.
|
| https://engineering.library.cornell.edu/kmoddl/
| agumonkey wrote:
| What started your journey into analog computers ?
|
| I remember seeing some navy videos from the 40s explaining self
| tracking guns (through projected geometry parts) and was so
| enamoured by it. Since then I found out about hydraulic and
| pneumatic electromechanic devices.
|
| Also, don't you find that programmers are fighting the
| imperative / von neumann model to recreate what those machines
| were ? systems of coupled parts "reacting" to each others
| (looking at you web world).
| kens wrote:
| What started my journey? Mainly that a collector gave us this
| CADC to examine, and it turned out to be more interesting
| (and complicated) than I expected.
|
| As far as programming models, yes, the imperative model isn't
| a good fit here. You can think of the CADC as "purely
| functional" since the outputs are direct functions of the
| inputs.
| bloopernova wrote:
| The kind of article that I read several times to savour it.
|
| The work and skill the original designers and manufacturers must
| have put into this is awe inspiring. And the work the author put
| in, what a fantastic job well done!
| kens wrote:
| Thanks! Yes, it's amazing what the designers could do with the
| technology that was available. It's the sort of device that you
| would think couldn't possibly work, especially when it is
| experiencing the vibration and forces of a supersonic plane
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