analogue

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A representation of an object that resembles the original. Analog devices monitor conditions, such as movement, temperature and sound, and convert them into analogous electronic or mechanical patterns. For example, an analog watch represents the planet's rotation with the rotating hands on the watch face. Telephones turn voice vibrations into electrical vibrations of the same shape. Analog implies a continuous signal in contrast with digital, which breaks everything into numbers. Analog video cameras scan their viewing area a line at a time and convert the infinitely varying intensities of red, green and blue (RGB) light into analogous electrical signals. See sampling.

Advantages/Disadvantages of Analog Recording

Audio and video have been analog since the beginning of radio and TV and the first magnetic recording. While the industry is almost entirely digital today, analog is still around in the form of AM/FM radio, audio cassettes and VHS tapes.

The ability to capture the subtle nature of the real world is the advantage of analog techniques. It takes huge digital capacities and bandwidth to match the granularity of many analog systems.

Analog Deteriorates When Copied

Once recorded, analog equipment, no matter how modern, cannot copy signals perfectly. Third and fourth generations of analog audio and video recordings show marked deterioration.

In contrast, by recording in digital from the beginning, or by converting from analog to digital at an early stage, audio and video data can be preserved indefinitely and copied over and over without deterioration. This fact has caused music and movie publishers much anguish and has always been a problem for software publishers. See copyright, DRM, peer-to-peer network and A/D converter.

Analog Concepts

Analog Radio

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noun

Something closely resembling or analogous to something else: congener, correlate, correlative, correspondent, counterpart, match, parallel. See same/different/compare.

A drug that differs in minor aspects of molecular structure from its parent drug. Analogues may be synthesized so that they have more potent effects, less side effects, or are more difficult to detect than the parent drug.

Today, he says, some 70% of the world's population are 'analogues', who are 'terrified by technology', and for whom the pain of technology 'is not just the time it takes to figure out new gadgets but the pain of feeling stupid at each moment along the way' (The Economist)

1. a chemical compound that is structurally similar to another. Such compounds can be used as probes to investigate specificity of, e.g. enzyme activity.
2. a molecule that has acquired similar characteristics to another (e.g. a similar structure or similar active site) from an unrelated ancestor via the process of convergent evolution. for example, the bakers' yeast triose phosphate isomerase and flavocytochrome b₂ C-terminal domain share a TIM-barrel architecture, but have no sequence similarities; the enzymes subtilisin and chymotrypsin are functional analogues that share a Ser — His — Asp catalytic triad with near identical spatial geometries, but have no other sequence or structural similarities.

• Electricity and Electronics - analog: (adj) designating electronic process in which data is represented by physical quantities that correspond to the variables involved
• General Technology - analog: signal with continuous range of values, opp. of digital

Dansk (Danish)
n. - analog, parallel, sidestykke
adj. - analog

Nederlands (Dutch)
iets analoogs, echt smakend/lijkend synthetische etenswaar

Français (French)
n. - analogue, analogie
adj. - analogique, par analogie

Deutsch (German)
n. - Entsprechung
adj. - entsprechend, ähnlich

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - ανάλογο ή αντίστοιχο δεδομένο, αναλογική διάταξη, (βιολ.) όργανο ανάλογης λειτουργίας, αλλά διαφορετικής υφής, συνθετική τροφή

Italiano (Italian)
analogia

Português (Portuguese)
n. - análogo (Quím.)

Русский (Russian)
аналог

Español (Spanish)
n. - palabra o cosa análoga
adj. - análogo

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - motsvarighet

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
相似物, 类似物, 类似情况, 同源词, 模拟指针式的, 相似物的, 模拟计算机的, 类似的

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 相似物, 類似物, 類似情況, 同源詞
adj. - 模擬指標式的, 相似物的, 模擬電腦的, 類似的

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 유사물, 상사기관
adj. - 유사한, 상사기관의

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 類似物

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮דבר מקביל, דבר דומה‬
adj. - ‮של שימוש בסימנים המיוצגים ע"י כמות משתנה רצופה כמיקום במרחב וכו', מראה את הזמן ע"י מחוגים ולא ע"י תצוגה סיפרתית (שעון), אנלוגי‬

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