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Characteristics of Operational Amplifiers

In analog computers and similar circuits, we make the assumption that the key component of the circuit — the operational amplifier — is perfect and ideal, with an infinite voltage gain and zero input current. Unfortunately, this is not possible in real-world devices. The questions we need to answer, then, are: how close can we come to the ideal, and how much error will be introduced into the results?
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A very typical commercial IC op amp circuit is the 741. This IC has been available for many years, and a number of variations have been developed to help minimize the errors inherent in its construction and operation. Nevertheless, the analysis we will perform here using the 741 will apply to any other IC op amp, if you take into account the actual parameters of the device you are actually using. Therefore, we will use the 741 as our example IC op amp.