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Mystery of Ancient Calculator Finally Cracked
jcaruso writes, "It's been more than 100 years since the discovery of the 2,000-year-old Antikythera Mechanism, but researchers are only now figuring out how it works." From the article:
"Since its discovery in 1902, the Antikythera Mechanism — with its intricate and baffling system of about 30 geared wheels — has been an enigma... During the last 50 years, researchers have identified various astronomical and calendar functions, including gears that mimic the movement of the sun and moon. But it has taken some of the most advanced technology of the 21st century to decipher during the past year the most advanced technology of the 1st century B.C."
Did it run Linux?
liqbase
Remember folks, always document your calculators.
Haida Manga
But it has taken some of the most advanced technology of the 21st century to decipher during the past year the most advanced technology of the 1st century B.C."Maybe in 2000 years we'll have the technology to decode that sentence!
Don't throw out the instructions; archaeologists from the 40th century might need them.
On the serious side, though... How much of our stuff will be unusable only 200 years from now?
Absolutely nothing new in this article, except that the latest team are going to be releasing their findings soon. Basically, it's a page filler, some entertainment, not news at all.
Really, we need a new word, for news which isn't functional information, but just amusing/entertaining.
I wish they'd bloody well get round to publishing the full translation of the text, though!
Some archeologists suggest that the people who used this calculator, actually tried to build a Beowulf cluster out of these, but were unable to because Beowulf wasn't born yet.
Actually this story is a little old, people have had the Antikythera device scoped out for a couple of years now. It's a sort of geared astrolabe using an epicyclic model (an astronomical paradigm adopted in Ptolomy's ptime) and the parts inside the corroded find were derived by some good ol'fashioned NMI scanning.
An astrolabe is basically a clock -- an analogue computer that correlates time, star position and latitude. Look 'em up -- they're beautiful instruments and very logically constructed. Each point indicates a star, the off-centre circles (al'mucanthers) are the projections of the celestial latitudes from the polar axis (think of a bunch of hoops on one spindle of a Tower of Hanoi model, then crank the spindle off the perpendicular by a few degrees, to give you an idea of the projection. Light source on top, your shadow rings are the al'mucanthers). Move the star pointer to one of those circles, then read the index off the rim of the device (the Mater). Because of their simplicity and elegance (the mathematical model, not the construction!) they were used up until Columbus' time. If the Antikythera device had been a better predictor, we might well have seen more of them. And a lot more gears. The only thing we still use from the development of the astrolabe today is the flat head screw, seen on one model in 1565.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
They should have given it to SG1. Dr. Jackson would have figured it out in no time, and they would have used to save the Earth from a far more technologically advanced enemy.
I agree not to leave this thing lying around for people to discover in 2000 years time. I agree not to reverse engineer this device......
Engineering is the art of compromise.
>> ... is there enough information to reverse engineer it?
There is. The article gets to the point at the very end, and frustratingly turns out to be hype for the upcoming release of what it does. The point is that they found significantly more text (than had been previously found) by using x-ray tomography to show slices of its internals. The text they found included the manual which was conveniently written in greek.
Apparently it turns out that the previous attempts to reverse engineer what it does were somewhat off.
I agree with the above poster: it is not really news yet - they are merely about to present their results. Hate. Hype.
This just goes to show why documentation is so important. Kids, when you want your CoolWare 1.3.37 still to be in use 2000 years from now...document it!
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Not a chance! Let me remind you of a little thing called the BC-CA. The BCCA is the predecessor of the DMCA, and if you think the DMCA is draconian - the BCCA prescribed death for every violation.
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
heh.. lots of nice pics and write-up here
Big deal - I know a couple guys, in the PRC, that could reverse engineer this thing and have working copies, with instructions in 12 languages, for sale on street before dusk...
But it has taken some of the most advanced technology of the 21st century to decipher during the past year the most advanced technology of the 1st century B.C.
To pull out the old quote, "It is twice as difficult to debug a program as to write it. Therefore, if you put all of your creativity and effort into writing the program, you are not smart enough to debug it."
Without any information even about what it's supposed to do, beyond being a series of gears, without knowing if it's even a fragment of a larger whole - or even knowing if it actually worked for the intended process (or was the ancient equivalent of a buggy program), that makes for quite a challenge.
I'm guessing, in the future, a massively advanced civilization that came across the ones and zeroes of Internet Explorer, without the O.S., without info about HTTP, without Windows or a computer based off that comical silicon technology they've only found fragments of, they wouldn't be able to figure it out either.
"He declines to be specific about what the writing says."
... so they figure all this out, and then they keep the writing secret? What's up with that.
WTF
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Slide rules: very few still in use today, but they were very important from 1620's (when they were invented) until the 1970/1980s -- 350 years.
Now, a calculator older than 5 years is a historical curiosity (although I still use a 15-year old calculator on a day-to-day basis).
What we're seeing is a shortened lifetime for calculators, software, etc. which probably makes documentation less important (excpet for historical curiosity). You would not realisticly expect any software / device you design now to be in use 350 or 2000 years from now.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I find it amusing.
/. appear to espouse the view that everyone before the middle-ages thought the earth was flat. Now granted - the rotation of planets around a common star doesn't necessarily imply the understanding of rotation of a non-flat planet but as soon as you consider other planets rising and setting you're going to start getting some major clues ... really, we've not developed that much.
This is a heliocentric astrolabe style device from about 80BC; an advance from geocentric designs. Yet most people on
I guess at 1:43am I'm easily amused!
Doesn't this thing remind anyone of the countless ancient artifacts we've seen in movies that are expressly designed to summon some evil force (the devil, elder gods, pokemon, etc.) to the Earth to destroy or enslave mankind forever? Should we really be playing around with this thing?
Pictures and Images to a working unit can be found here
The reports of strange lights emanating from the lab were merely energy discharges from the material under the effects of the x-ray analysis, which is quite normal actually. Unfounded rumors of strange demonic figures running amok in the complex were likewise nothing more than a mischievous prank by a few of the overworked scientists who took a joke a bit too far. The security forces stationed around the building are merely there to keep pesky reporters from spoiling next-week's release. Any sounds which appear to be gunfire are simply sonic gas bubbles popping from out of the high tech equipment. So everything is completely under control, no need to worry.
Clickety Click
Properly document your hardware!
They did, only no one could overstand the joyful tongueage it was scribated in. Press green button marked RED to activating your unit and with disdain you must...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Given that we know only as much about such ancient times by the encrusted ruins we find, how do we know that this was thier most advanced?? Ive read about the roman factories recently that gives me the impression we really don't know much more than what most og us have seen in Spartacus.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
...they were the ancestors of C programmers, as it was indeed documented but only in obscure comments embedded in the code.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
1. Understand how this works
:)
2. Write an emulator for it
3. Think of ways to parallelize
4. Try it out in software
5. If it works, build all the hardware
Tada, here you go, a loosely-defined "cluster".
I love moderators who blindly moderate informative. The site passes several hidden fields to the x.cgi script. Here is a working URL. http://www.networkworld.com/cgi-bin/mailto/x.cgi?p agetosend=/export/home/httpd/htdocs/news/2006/1127 06-antikythera-slides.html
BESURETODRINKYOUROVALTINE
Netcraft confirms it... Antikythera Mechanisms are dying!
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
And penned by no less than the great Greek legislator himself!
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
... had the Library of Alexandria not been sacked, would we still have the instruction booklet for this thingy?