Why did digital computers replace differential analyzers in the 1950s?

The differential analyzer, an electromechanical analog computer invented by Vannevar Bush in the 1930s, was primarily used for solving differential equations through mechanical integration.12

These machines were replaced by digital computers in the 1950s due to several inherent limitations of analog technology. While analog computers were effective for specific simulations, they were difficult to program and expensive to build as general-purpose devices. Furthermore, analog representations were limited in precision, typically providing only a few decimal places of accuracy.3

In contrast, the development of stored-program digital computers—inspired by the work of John von Neumann—offered greater flexibility and computational power. Although early digital machines were also difficult to operate and expensive, they provided a path toward general-purpose computing that could handle complex logical operations and evolving software applications, eventually rendering the mechanical and voltage-based analog systems obsolete for most tasks.432