nitpick: discrete vs. digital

[David L. Pelovitz]

On Thu, 11 Jul 1996, Jeffrey Reid wrote:

> On Thu, 11 Jul 1996, David L. Pelovitz wrote:
> > I can't help but think that the television/film division is reinforcing
> > a larger analog/digital division in Pynchon's work.  After all, film is
> > digital, operating at 24 fps with absolute demarcations.
> Don't be confused about the difference between digital and discrete.
> a digital recording is (straight from the OED)
>   "a Designating (a) recording in which the original waveform is
> digitally coded and the information in it represented by the presence or
> absence of pulses of equal strength, making it less subject to degradation
> than a conventional analogue signal; of or pertaining to such recording."
> 
> Film may be recorded in discrete images but it is in no way digital.  No
> ones and zeros.
>
You are confusing "digital recording" with "digital."  Digital is 
nothing more than having the property of being able to be represented
in discrete digits.  It isn't just ones and zeros (that's binary code,
perhaps the most common use of the digital in Pynchon, but not the
only one).  After all, doesn't a digital clock uses ten digits?
In fact, I am wearing a standard face watch (hour, minute and second
hands) and it states on the clock face that it is "Quartz digital".
And you can tell because it clicks from second to second rather
than sweeping as an analog watch would.
 
David Pelovitz - dqp5805 at is4.nyu.edu