Slashdot Mirror
The World's Oldest Computer May Have Predicted the Future (gizmodo.com)
Gizmodo reports: Discovered in an ancient shipwreck near Crete in 1901, the freakishly advanced Antikythera Mechanism has been called the world's first computer. A decades-long investigation into the 2,000 year-old-device is shedding new light onto this mysterious device... It wasn't programmable in the modern sense, but it's considered the world's first analog computer.
schwit1 shares a report from the Associated Press:: For over a century since its discovery in an ancient shipwreck, the exact function of the Antikythera Mechanism -- named after the southern Greek island off which it was found -- was a tantalizing puzzle.... After more than a decade's efforts using cutting-edge scanning equipment, an international team of scientists has now read about 3,500 characters of explanatory text -- a quarter of the original -- in the innards of the 2,100-year-old remains. They say it was a kind of philosopher's guide to the galaxy, and perhaps the world's oldest mechanical computer.
schwit1 shares a report from the Associated Press:: For over a century since its discovery in an ancient shipwreck, the exact function of the Antikythera Mechanism -- named after the southern Greek island off which it was found -- was a tantalizing puzzle.... After more than a decade's efforts using cutting-edge scanning equipment, an international team of scientists has now read about 3,500 characters of explanatory text -- a quarter of the original -- in the innards of the 2,100-year-old remains. They say it was a kind of philosopher's guide to the galaxy, and perhaps the world's oldest mechanical computer.
LOL, forgot to tick the post anonymous did you, micro dick?
Every time I see this sort of trolling I think, poor fellow, showing his inadequacy in public.
Which is an orrery, not a computer. The only reason to label it the latter is for sensationalism.
Although the fact that they could build something precise enough to achieve this over 2000 years ago is still pretty damn impressive.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It is a purpse built analog mechanical computer.
What it is not, is a universal computer, nor is it a reprogrammable computer.
Any universal computer can simulate any other computer, even other universal computers. A purpose built single purpose computer is only capable of performing the calculations it was designed for.
Compare: a modern universal computer against a mechanical cash register.
The cash register does computations; generally, it keeps a running tally of a customer's transaction, as well as a running tally of total exchanges made during the day. It cant really do other kinds of tasks. It was not made to do so.
Likewise, the antikythera mechanism is designed to perform computatuons: logically, when the sinusoid patterns of celestial objects will result in tangencies if overlaid. It really cant do other kinds of tasks. It was not made to do so.
A universal computer can do both tasks, and any other task a computer is capable of being built for, because it was made to do so.
The universal computer is fairly modern. purpose built computers are a very ancient thing. Do not try to conflate the two, or claim that one isnt a computer just because it is not a universal turing machine.