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Unread 15-09-2010, 11:52
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Re: Are they really robots?

Quote:
Originally Posted by squirrel View Post
Might be off topic a bit, but consider the carburetor, vs electronic fuel injection. The carburetor is a relatively simple mechanical device that uses some pretty basic principles to meter fuel quite accurately under many different operating conditions. EFI uses a computer, several sensors, several actuators, a sort of complicated program, and calibrated lookup tables to do the same job.
Or consider a gas turbine engine fuel control. Up until about the early-70s, these were analog hydromechanical computers. They consisted of 3D sliding cams, spinning flyweights, EDM-contoured valves, servo valves, check valves, pistons, levers, pressurized metal bellows, helium-filled coils, etc etc.



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