Hello all,
For fun (obviously not profit :) I am designing (and will soon start building) an analog computer. Currently, the design has 78 inputs and 52 outputs. This includes connections to a DAQ card in a PC.
While I am prepared to bring these connections to a plug board and wire it up with banana cables (to think that some people actually complain about UNIX's shell interface :) I'd rather devise a way to enable the PC to supply the required connections.
But how? I loathe the idea of wiring up a bucket full of transistors. I'd rather use relays at that point -- at least I'd get a satisfying click-clack when setting up the analog machine.
Analog Devices sells digitally programmable arrays of DPST switches.
4-per array. So I'd need 1014 of them, at about $1.60 a piece. Ouch. (I'm thinking DPST here so that ground can be routed to the analog computer inputs instead of leaving them open, otherwise I could has an 8 switch array of SPSTs...)Is there some other type of cheap analog switching solution that I'm not aware of? Something like this has to exist for the AV guys, no?
As a last resort, if the price is unbearable, I could have only a fraction of the analog connections under PC control, but this isn't nearly as sexy.
Ideas? I really want to make the best hybrid I can, but this is new waters for me -- I've never used an analog computer before (which is basically why I'm building one).