While the analog computer in question did use ICs for the core op amps, the choppers and other circuitry to make them work well took up an entire board. Programming is all done with patch cables.

An analog computer uses easily measurable quantities such as voltages or rotations (rather than programming languages, codes, or algorithms) to represent numbers.

To program an analog computer, you simply wrote out the equations you wanted to solve, converted them to a block diagram, then wired the various computing elements together with pluggable cords on ...

As requested by readers, editor Andy Turudic demonstrates that it’s child’s play to set up an Analog Computer to compute a Lorenz Attractor.

But robots don’t always have microcontrollers and software, as [Mati_DIY]’s zero programming analog line follower demonstrates.