[shrubble]

I think that the author is wrong.

Analog computer's weak point is the power supply, such that many companies making them ended up having to manufacture their own to very high standards, such as big capacitors with 0.1% tolerance. Reason is that you are using the analog voltage and thus poor power regulation leads to inaccurate results.

With newer analog computer setups more is integrated into the chip itself, making power supply issues much less of a problem.

[yummypaint]

On the other hand, making large passives on silicon is extremely challenging to do accurately, and relatively expensive in terms of area. Most power regulators rely on external caps for this reason.