{"id":661,"date":"2017-03-30T08:00:03","date_gmt":"2017-03-30T15:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/eagle\/blog\/?p=661"},"modified":"2023-09-26T15:09:49","modified_gmt":"2023-09-26T22:09:49","slug":"difference-analog-digital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/products\/fusion-360\/blog\/difference-analog-digital\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a-Me, Mario! Here to Teach You The Difference Between Analog and Digital"},"content":{"rendered":"

Analog vs. Digital – What\u2019s the Difference?<\/h1>\n

It would be hard to find a person who was alive in the 1980’s, who has never heard of Super Mario Bros. And while it\u2019s often confusing wondering why a plumber can shoot fireballs out of a flower, or why he keeps jumping down pipes to save a princess, we could say the same about trying to understand the difference between analog and digital. So what makes each unique? Are analog and digital two different realities that exist side-by-side like the Mushroom Kingdom and our Planet Earth? We\u2019ll be using some classic video games, namely the NES\u00a9 and Nintendo\u00a9 64 to find out the difference, let\u2019s a-go!<\/span><\/p>\n

Flower-Power Mode<\/h2>\n

\"NES_Super_Mario_Bros\"Before we begin with the details, we\u2019d like to clarify two terms that we\u2019ll keep coming back to in our explanations, signals and circuits. You can think of signals as the fireballs that Mario throws around whenever he picks up a flower power. They always bounce in a particular direction, and if you wanted to, you could even measure how far they travel over a period of time and how much damage they do when they hit an enemy.<\/span><\/p>\n

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This is much like a signal, which is usually voltage or current being measured as it changes over time. Signals are being used to send data through wires, or even sending data through wireless methods like Radio Frequency (RF) or WiFi. Whatever form they take, every signal has the same mission to pass information between devices.<\/span><\/p>\n

These signals can be used in a <\/span>circuit<\/span><\/a>, which is basically a circular path that electricity flows through to do some work, like lighting an LED, powering a speaker, or spinning a motor. Circuits can also include both digital and analog signals, and it\u2019s this diverse mix that makes the magic happen, like converting the tilt of a joystick on a Nintendo 64 controller to control the speed and direction that Mario runs around in the Mushroom Kingdom.<\/span><\/p>\n

Going Digital with Nintendo NES<\/h2>\n

Remember playing Super Mario Bros. back on the Nintendo NES? Those were the days, smashing bricks, jumping down pipes and stomping on mushrooms until the sun went down (or up in some cases). In Super Mario Bros, everything exists in a two-dimensional plane. Our pixelated Mario could either go up, down, left, or right.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"super-mario-bros-main-screen\"

Our first foray into digital electronics thanks to Super Mario Bros. (Image source<\/a>)<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

This is exactly how the world of digital signals work. It\u2019s a black and white world, where signals are either on, or off. Let\u2019s take the Nintendo NES controller as an example. Every button has a defined purpose – the D-pad only goes four directions, and B and A perform very specific actions. So if you push the right arrow, Mario walks right a step, and if you press the A button, Mario jumps once. It doesn\u2019t matter how hard you push each button; they just do their own individual action without any variance. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"NES-CTRL\"

The Nintendo NES controller with its simple digital inputs (Image source<\/a>)<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

In the world of digital signals, we can replace our NES buttons with voltages. Our voltage can either go up to 5 volts or down to 0 volts, that\u2019s like up and down on our controller. Anything in between doesn\u2019t exist. If you plotted the waveform of a digital signal on a graph, it would look like this:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"digital-square-wave\"

A digital square wave graph, showing the rise and fall of voltage.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

As you can see, the top of the waveform sits at 5V and is considered our \u201con\u201d position, also known as a 1. The bottom of the waveform sits at 0V and is considered our \u201coff\u201d position, also known as 0.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Simplicity of Digital Circuits<\/h2>\n

Unlike their complex analog counterparts, digital circuits are much more defined, and you\u2019ll find them made primarily out of transistors, logic gates, microcontrollers, and microprocessors. These processors can be anything from the giant ones running in your video game console to the tiny one in your Arduino. But they all serve the same purpose – outputting a digital signal. Here\u2019s an excellent example of a purely digital circuit:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"digital-circuit\"

A 100% digital circuit, notice the use of integrated circuits instead of resistors, diodes, etc…<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

A ton of the electronics that we rely on today are made using digital signals. You know that HDMI cable that you use to plug your video game console into your TV? That\u2019s transmitting a digital signal of 1s and 0s. Or how about all of those songs you stream through Spotify? Another digital signal. What makes digital signals so popular?<\/span><\/p>\n

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