Ancient Computers
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Modern technology cracks the code of "the world's first computer." Just over a century ago, sponge divers working the waters near Antikythera, a Greek island between the mainland and Crete, discovered the wreck of an ancient ship. Now, anyone who has ever gone snorkeling in Greece knows it's not unusual to swim over bits and pieces of the past, usually broken wine and grain pots that once lay in the holds of sunken sailing ships devoured by worms long ago.
Mediterranean Mystery Solved: An Ancient Artifact Counts | Edutopia
In 1959, Derek John de Solla Price, a Yale University Professor of the History of Science, published in Scientific American his investigation of the Antikythera Mechanism, which he labeled An Ancient Greek Computer. Since then the mechanism has been subjected to extensive international scientific investigations to ascertain its function. The Antikythera Mechanism, a mechanical analog computer fully in the modern sense of the concept, was constructed probably in Rhodes in the early decades of the First Century B.C. to perform astronomical calculations. Imagine Roman merchant galleys heading to Rome during the First Century B.C. from Rhodes and other ports of the economically and culturally rich Eastern Mediterranean, ferrying plundered goods for the obligatory triumphal parade following a victory against invaders or in the Civil Wars being fought all over the Empire.
The Antikythera Mechanism: The World’s First Analog Computer
The oldest known computer , a scientific conundrum for more than a century, did not yield its secrets easily. Only after the most recent innovations were employed, including a $500,000 imaging system constructed in situ, was the mystery of its 81 corroded and mineralized components solved. Its journey began perhaps 2100 years ago, at the height of Roman Republic, and ended on the sea bed near Crete, waiting two millenia to be recovered by a sponge diver in 1902. It originated, perhaps, from the island of Rhodes, renowned in classical times for its automata and mechanical follies.
Imaging the Antikythera Computer | Gadget Lab | Wired.com
The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project
The first model of the Antikythera Mechanism was actually build in the 1930s by Ioannis Theofanides. A model based on Price's work was built in the 1980s by Robert Deroski and donated by Price to the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. In Australia, clockmaker Frank Percival made a model based on the research done by Allan Bromley and Michael Wright, who subsequently developed his own model. With the new results and the latest gearing diagram from the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, new models are being built by other researchers, with some being working models. The results of the AMRP have been integrated into at least three models, made by Michael Wright, Dionysios Kriaris, Massimo Vicentini and Tatjana van Vark, while the Research Group is developing a model based on the ongoing research.
Antikythera or Anticythera ( English pronunciation: /ˌæntɪkɪˈθɪərə/ ) ( Greek : Ἀντικύθηρα Greek : Αντικύθηρα , [andiˈciθira] , literally "opposite Kythera ") is a Greek island lying on the edge of the Aegean Sea , between Crete and Peloponnese . Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality of Kythera island. [ 1 ] Antikythera may also refer to the Antikythera Strait, through which Modified Mediterranean Water enters the Sea of Crete. [ 2 ] Its land area is 20.43 square kilometers, and it lies 38 kilometers south-east of Kythira .
Antikythera - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ENIAC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ENIAC ( / ˈ ɛ n i . æ k / ; Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer ) [ 1 ] [ 2 ] was the first general-purpose electronic computer . It was a Turing-complete digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems. [ 3 ] ENIAC was designed to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States Army 's Ballistic Research Laboratory . [ 4 ] [ 5 ] When ENIAC was announced in 1946 it was heralded in the press as a "Giant Brain". It boasted speeds one thousand times faster than electro-mechanical machines, a leap in computing power that no single machine has since matched.
A British museum curator has built a working replica of a 2,000-year-old Greek machine that has been called the world’s first computer. A dictionary-size assemblage of 37 interlocking dials crafted with the precision and complexity of a 19th-century Swiss clock, the Antikythera mechanism was used for modeling and predicting the movements of the heavenly bodies as well as the dates and locations of upcoming Olympic games . The original 81 shards of the Antikythera were recovered from under the sea (near the Greek island of Antikythera) in 1902, rusted and clumped together in a nearly indecipherable mass. Scientists dated it to 150 B.C.
World’s First Computer Rebuilt, Rebooted After 2,000 Years | Gadget Lab | Wired.com
Jo Marchant, consultant From Swiss Army knives to iPhones, it seems we just love fancy gadgets with as many different functions as possible. And judging from the ancient Greek Antikythera mechanism , the desire to impress with the latest multipurpose must-have item goes back at least 2000 years. This mysterious box of tricks was a portable clockwork computer, dating from the first or second century BC. Operated by turning a handle on the side, it modelled the movements of the Sun, Moon and planets through the sky, sported a local calendar, star calendar and Moon-phase display, and could even predict eclipses and track the timing of the Olympic games. I gave a talk on the device at London's Royal Institution last night.
Short Sharp Science: World's first computer may be even older than thought
A page from the Bombardier's Information File (BIF) that describes the components and controls of the Norden bombsight . The Norden bombsight was a highly sophisticated optical/mechanical analog computer used by the United States Army Air Force during World War II , the Korean War , and the Vietnam War to aid the pilot of a bomber aircraft in dropping bombs accurately. An analog computer is a form of computer that uses the continuously-changeable aspects of physical phenomena such as electrical , [ 1 ] mechanical , or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved.