Use of a digital/analog arithmetic unit within a digital computer

Abstract

A novel approach to arithmetic operations in digital computers is described which combines digital and analog techniques. This is accomplished by using parallel-serial interconnections of digital/analog converters. The interconnections are under stored program control and are effected by selecting multiplexers which route the analog signals to perform various arithmetic operations. The final analog signal, which is the result of the computation is converted to digital form by means of an analog/digital converter.Because of the extreme parallel nature of D/A Arithmetic, high computational speeds are attained, although all the circuitry is operating slowly by present digital computer standards. Using present techniques the analog nature of the computation limits the accuracy to four or five significant decimal figures. Therefore, the D/A Arithmetic Unit could not replace the arithmetic unit presently in digital computers, but could be used to solve problems or parts of problems that do not require extreme accuracy.