The Antikythera mechanism is a 2,000 year old mechanical computer

[ElliotSmith]

TL;DR Summary

2,000 year year old Greek-built mechanical analog computer may have bee the world's very first computer.

This was a marvel of technology for the time.

Leave it up to the Greeks to invent something like this, they were at the forefront of innovation in the ancient world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

 

[berkeman]

A very good friend of mine was one of the principal researchers investigating the mechanism with innovative imaging techniques...

https://talks.stanford.edu/tom-malz...eflectance-imaging-the-antikythera-mechanism/

https://www.hpl.hp.com/news/2006/oct-dec/antikythera.html

 

[BillTre]

I saw a documentary on this and its discovery a few years ago at an archeology channel event that was in town here.
It is fascinating and amazingly ahead of when comparable mechanisms were made.
Also what a lucky find, at the bottom of the Mediterranean and covered in encrustations.

 

[BillTre]

Here are some on line documentaries I found on it:
Nova
Nature
Greece High Definition

 

[chemisttree]

And another link from Clickspring’s YouTube channel describing his reproduction of the mechanism.

 

[Tom.G]

And a 1-3/4 hour video by Tony Freeth of University College, London, presented at Stanford University in 2015.