2000 year old computer finally recreated

[PhilO 0]

For the first time in 2000 years, a fully working version of the Antikythera mechanism has been built by Michael Wright in England:

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/12/2000-year-old-a.html

This was the world's first computer, built with a sophisticated set of gears and driven by rotating a shaft by hand. From the article:

A dial on the faceplace featured the Greek zodiac and an Egyptian calendar; pointers showed the location of the moon and the five planets known at the time. On the machine's back, an upper dial shows a 19-year calendar (matching the solunar cycle) and the timing of upcoming Olympic games. A lower dial shows a 76-year cycle (when the Olympic and solunar cycles coincide) and indicates the months in which lunar and solar eclipses can be expected.

There's a Youtube video with the recreator demonstrating the mechanism in action:

[Cometmaker 0]

This was the world's first computer, built with a sophisticated set of gears and driven by rotating a shaft by hand.

Could you elaborate on why you consider this a computer and not a calculator? I think your response is material to the significance you attempted to convey in this thread.

[PhilO 0]

Could you elaborate on why you consider this a computer and not a calculator? I think your response is material to the significance you attempted to convey in this thread.

A 4-function calculator can be considered a limited form of a computer, actually (and bigger models such as my TI-89 are fully programmable computers.) Internally all calculators do have general purpose microprocessors; the first electronic microprocessor, the 4004, was built just for that purpose.

I wouldn't argue that it's a computer in the modern sense. Arguably the first truly programmable computer concept came from the brilliant work of Charles Babbage in the 19th century, first with the difference engine which was more akin to the Antikythera mechanism conceptually since it was not programmable beyond setting numbers to be added, and then the Analytical engine which was intended to use punch cards for real programmability. Ada Lovelace, a rare female mathematician at that time, wrote the first program for the machine, though only conceptually since it could not be built (hence is considered history's first programmer.) Actually the Analytical engine has yet to be actually constructed as far as I know, only his simpler but still very complex Difference engine has been finally been built not that long ago.

The Antikythera mechanism is a computer in the sense that it can calculate, in a deterministic way using gears, a number of complicated values using starting conditions that are evolved over time, using mathematical relationships represented by gear ratios, as the user moves the gears. I would say the key point in classifying it as a computer is that the purpose of the machine was to inform a human mind of future values of e.g. the position of the planets or time of eclipses, rather than directly doing some work, and while not programmable, it is dynamic and can compute a range of future values projected over 70 years into the future, not something that a human can do in their head in any era.

[Arnold 0]

Call it what you wish, it is the product of a brilliant mind. How is it possible for man to be so able in so many complicated fields, yet fail in setting up a rational society?