reading the above and looking at the editing history it seems to me that the whole issue turns on whether accepts the concept of the analogue signal requirement of being continuous or not since i am an engineer in the aerospace industry i though i would draw an analogy from that industry that illustrated the point i was surprised to find that the analogy was turned on its head as will be revealed every reference book i checked made the point that the analog signal had to be continuous it was even in my uni notes but to the analogy the harrier aircraft uses mechanical wire linkages from the joystick to the control surfaces elevator ailerons rudder this is of course unarguably an analogue signalling system the wire linkage forms a continuous signal and the control surfaces move in smooth continuous steps the typhoon aircraft in contrast uses a digital system the position of the pilot's joystick is digitised into a number which gets mashed around a bit by a computer the resultant digital signal is then fed to the control surface via what is essentially a stepper hydraulic system both the signals and the movement of the control surfaces are described in all the manuals as digital in spite of the bit size of the numbers being large enough that the movement may appear to be smooth to the pilot the surprise was that in the preamble notes the part of the manual given to new starters as part of their training the operation of the digital control contained an explanetary analogy where the system was likened to a clock with analogue hands where the movement of the hands is in fact discontinuous and hence not really analogue at all in the subject context the movement of the hands on a clock that has discontinuous movement i e the majority of clocks is not analogue and is wrong to continue to insist that it is