◬ MIMZY · instrument № 13 · the analog–quantum suite · SOFTWARE → HARDWARE
The Analog ISA
Before code ran on chips, the program was the wiring: integrators, summers, and gain pots, patched into a differential equation. This is a tiny instruction set for that machine. Write the program, press assemble — it becomes a patch diagram of hardware blocks and runs live. The HARMONIC program is the toroid tank's own equation, in software.
⊙ EDUCATIONAL & SIMULATION — every instruction is a physical block; Euler-integrated at 32 substeps
The program (analog assembly)
SRC sin|square|pulse f [amp] — signal source CONST k — constant level INT x [ic] — integrator (capacitor), initial value ic SUM a b [c] — summing amp · GAIN x k — gain pot MUL a b — multiplier · NEG x — inverter OUT a [b] — scope channels · ; comment
The patch — the program as hardware
The scope
How real is this? This is exactly how analog computers (the EAI-680s, the Heathkits, the machines that flew Apollo simulations) were programmed: the "ISA" was a patch panel, an instruction was a physical block, and a program was a differential equation wired in copper. The blocks here behave like their hardware: INT is a capacitor integrator, SUM/GAIN/NEG are op-amp stages, MUL was a real (expensive) module. The LORENZ program reproduces the genuine Lorenz attractor (σ=10, ρ=28, β=8/3); the HARMONIC program computes ẍ = −ω²x — the same equation the toroid tank's physics solves in bronze and charge, which is the suite's point: software and hardware are two spellings of the same machine.