Linguistic Clue Pushes Back Origin of "World's Oldest Computer"

Calopteryx points out a piece at New Scientist which suggests that the Antikythera mechanism may be even older than previously thought; an ancient Greek word on of the device's dials suggests the device may date to the early second century BC. The article is accompanied by a great animation of its (deduced) workings, too.

Comments

Full res video and more info.

[yogibaer]

This device is awesome and gives you a glimpse what the "Ancients" ("Stargate" pun intended) already knew and how much of our history is lost. Imagine for a moment if there had been an uninterrupted development from the knowledge that went into this little box for 2000 years. Makes Steling/Gibbons tale of "The Difference Engine" pale by comparison. I read a fascinating book about the discovery and science of this mechanism ("Decoding the Heavens": http://www.decodingtheheavens.com/) and it ist is truly mind boggling how much skill went into this box, 1500 years before we "modern" people build anything remotely as sophisticated. While reading the book I had some trouble to imagine all the wheels and gears described and the full res video is very helpful (can be found here: http://www.mogi-vice.com/Antikythera/Antikythera-it.html (italian)). Very well done, indeed, Signore!.