ABSTRACT
The response of engineers was to construct a design tool that embodied many of the preferences, practices and values of their culture. This tool was the e lectronic ana logue computer. By enrolling electronics to redefine model building techniques and enhance empirical design methods, engineers were able to push back the limits of empiricism, as well as the scientification of engineering. The electronic analogue computer went beyond its functions as an equationsolver and a system for modelling and simulating dynamic systems. From engineers' own accounts we find that electronic analogue computing enhanced engineering design by acting as a direct aid and guide to the thinking process. It was a rgued that as a result of their use and interaction with th e analogue computer, engineers obtained not only a better "feel" for the problem, but also ga ined "insight" into where weaknesses in the design lay and th e direction to follow in order to reduce them. In a sense th e engin eer and the electronic analogue computer held a conversation. Constructed b y and in the image of engineering culture, the analogue computer was given a lab coat and invited into the laboratory. There, it helped engineers to build models of, test, think about and redesign the complex technical systems that engineers were constructing and trying to make work.
