Autobiography of an Analog Signal

P.S. : The following was done as a part of my electronics assignment during the fourth semester of my Undergraduate program at DA-IICT. It explains the working of a pipelined ADC(analog to digtal converter) using some non-technical support.

I never wanted to be a digital signal. Even the thought of being a digital signal used to send chills down my spine. It is not that I was born so. For once, not all was only “ones” and “zeroes”. I was born a healthy analog signal in a family where the emotional quotient of an analog signal ran quite all through the entire family tree. During those days no digital signal inhabited the planet. All was prim and proper with the earth. We lived one big family of sine, cosine, square waves and various other of our kind walked the face of the earth with no fear whatsoever. Until one day……

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It still is a hazy memory. They say humans have various emotions and that they can distinguish the variety of fraudulent and inhuman behaviors. That they can experience pain and pleasure. It is amazing. I have heard about humans a lot. But more on that later….

So, now the planet was happily prospering and it was the day when a new signal was born to Mr Sine x and Mrs Cos x. They quite rightly called it “little tan x”. We were having a little party in the compound and I was amazing everyone with my curves and high frequency. Old Marty and his wife stood by the marquee and were sipping lemon tea from a small drinking glass that every old couple in the neighborhood had managed to lay their hands upon and they all looked like the members of one big band drinking from the brightly colored glasses. Old Marty had undergone an amplification last night. It was because of the constant sleepiness he experienced almost all the time. He looked quite active and showed no resilience in expressing his dislike towards the champing and chafing kids.

Just then dad ran in shouting the arrival of some creepy creatures from outer space. See, now we were kids at that time and were quite shocked at seeing creatures which were twice as big as us and were composed of long lines of two different sizes. They looked like a fresh pack of chocolates just brought out and wrapped in the colored robes spelling curses and firing at us with their big guns. They talked in weird noises and called each other with numbers. We froze at site while some ran in the direction they felt suitable. I stood looking at the violence. I saw a big “24” with a gun approaching me and all I remember is a deep blur…….

That was the first time we were exposed to the infamous “binary signals”. We had heard a lot about them. They were insensitive and lacked emotions and were like machines and all that they “thought” ,”wished” and “wanted” was expressed using two digits “0” and “1” and that they were on a spree to convert every signal to the digital format. Surprising huh? They say even humans have become emotionless these days. I wonder at the fate of the place.

So, on it went for some days. Analog signals from various nooks and corners were brought in big and small numbers. None was petitioned a leave. They were bundled up in cold, dark rooms where they wept their hearts out to a uniformed guard “38” who could not but stare at the foolish sensitivities of ours. And so the days went on till one day there was a lot of noise in the concentration compound.

We were allowed light and we looked for the first time at our perennial fate. They were big white plastered machines of various specifications. They had different numbers inscribed on them in bright red font, the one that you get when there is blood spilled all over a clean surface. Some said “1 bit”, “2 bit” and so on. I felt dizzy. Apart from that, we saw an acronym inscribed on all the machines, just above the red font in bright green. It said “A. D. C.” in a clear and crisp tone.

I don’t know if it was the nonchalance of the guards or a very confounded state of ours that took a toll on me and I fainted. When I gained some consciousness, which I think is attributed to the reeking deluge of some chemicals inside the big white A.D.C. ,I was queued up at the edge of a conveyor belt that carried us along a slope to a square plate with almost conspicuously shining neon signs that said “Sample and Hold”.

Further down the line were various triangular metal machines crunching the already engulfed signals and spitting a transformed one of the same. It seemed devastating and I looked inquisitively at what was about to be my future, not knowing when will I see light again and in what form. And, just when I was speculating the further course of action and contemplating about the past, a sudden jerk set me in motion. Falling almost freely on the slope made me vomit. It went along for some time this way and then finally I was stopped at a junction. The aforementioned “Sample and Hold” was the junction. It held me constant for some time as if calculating my weight or something . but that is how I was held for sometime before being once again sent down to another junction.

I finally reached a forked road. I don’t know if you will believe me or not but I saw an exact replica of mine move along one side and myself move the other side. I saw two almost similar constructions ahead facing each other with their backs turned towards each other. I know my credibility about those moments can be considered doubtful but I can vouch for the same. As soon as I entered the first small structure I saw a brilliant flash of light. There were various resistors arranged in a line with a voltage supply maintained at the head of the top resistor.

They were held vertically in the compartment and I could see that there were long wires emerging from the junction of every two resistors and a small funnel at whose node I was installed and along with the emerging nodes , I was passed into the triangular structures called “op-amps”. Now these were hefty circuit elements, and being passed through those should not be seen as some joke. There were various elementary elements inside the “op-amp” including capacitors and resistors. It was like a big miz-maze where a nine year child will get easily lost. But, I held on. I could observe that the “op-amp” was actually giving out outputs in the form of the fearful 0 and 1 based on the difference between the voltage wire from the resistor node and myself. I could not recognize myself when I came out. I was almost like the tormentors who had inflicted the aforementioned pain on our family. I was only recuperating when we were shoved in another compartment that looked similar to the previous one from the outside. Inside there were current elements with various switches controlling their flow.

My body which now looked like a digital signal, was used to control the switches. I felt like giggling, not knowing the future that lay upon me. I had not initially noticed that just before entering the second compartment, another funnel had filtered a replica of mine to the outside of the entire structure. I couldn’t but feel amused at the prospect of being at various places in one time.

Inside the second structure, I was rebuilt to more or less what I still despise to become. Coming out of the second structure I saw my self. Yes, I am not kidding. The replica that had deserted me at the forked junction, joined me only to proceed into another of those hefty and terrifying op-amps. I looked at how I was and what I had almost become. The op-amp’s inner compartment was no more a surprise. I had undergone the anguish already and it was only what new the op-amp had to offer. This one subtracted me from my original replica and it amplified us.

I was exhausted. I don’t know when I fell asleep. I only remember that the cycle that I had mentioned went on for various times and I woke up only after I felt a very bright source of natural light. I was out of the terrifying A.D.C. I reconciled my senses just to be met by my acquaintances, turned into the same form that we had collectively hated since the dawn of the time, “a freaking Digital signal”. And since then have been this way only to fortell the tale of our woe to the living humanity.

They say even humans faced some guy named Hitler who wanted to refine Europe. He killed all the jews. We are lucky. At least, we lived only to see our woe, which we don’t experience. Above all, we, digital signals don’t feel.