A Binary Floating-Point Resistor

The digital computer control of physical processes requires parameters that can be altered digitally. A resistor design is described that provides settings in a wide range with fixed precision. For this purpose a binary floating-point format is used both for expressing the resistor values and for the digital setting. A resistor structure is given that yields values expressed by the above format. Implementation employing electromechanical and electronic components is presented. The configuration described compares favorably with a straightforward binary design. It is expected that such a resistor will be especially useful for hybrid passive-network analyzer applications and, employed as a reference device, for the digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital conversion of other kinds of quantities.