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A Key Component: The Operational Amplifier

EAI TR-20 dual integrator network module

Transistorized analog computers often used discrete op-amps in pluggable modules. Their function depended on what they were wired to.

A Key Component: The Operational Amplifier

In electronic analog computers, electrical currents represent numerical values: higher or lower voltage signifies greater or lesser values. Key to this process is the operational amplifier (op-amp), a voltage amplifying circuit.

Combined with other components, op-amps use voltage to add, subtract or multiply by a constant and integrate over time. Op-amps also have diverse uses aside from computers.

A Palimpsest on the Electronic Analog Art

This collection of notes and articles about analog computing was an essential reference for analog computer engineers in the 1950s.

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Reacting in Real Time

When bullets and missiles fly, you need to respond swiftly. During World War II, both sides looked to op-amp technology for solutions.

In America, Bell Labs engineer David Parkinson dreamt one night in 1940 of an anti-aircraft gun using the amplifiers he’d developed for telephone circuits. By 1944, the resulting M9 gun director helped destroy 76% of German V-1 buzz bombs.

In wartime Germany, engineer Helmut Hoelzer used op-amps to guide the V-2 rocket. After the war, Hoelzer’s groundbreaking work provided a foundation for America’s Hermes rocket.

M10 Gun Director

The M9 Gun Director and its bigger brother, the M10, was only one part of an anti-aircraft “battery”. Visual or radar tracking provided target information. Up to four 90mm or 120mm artillery guns took data from the director to aim.

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V-2 rocket launch

After World War II, captured V-2 rockets—and captured rocket engineers—helped jump-start the U.S. missile program. Helmut Hoelzer brought not only rocket expertise, but also an early analog computer he used in Germany during the War to simulate them.

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