Mediterranean Mystery Solved: An Ancient Artifact Counts. Modern technology cracks the code of "the world's first computer. " Credit: NASA 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.
But what the sponge divers found was anything but usual: the pieces of a device of sorts, consisting of thirty bronze gears and dozens of smaller parts and fragments encrusted with rust and corrosion. It has been studied over the years since its discovery, and at various times scientists and archaeologists have attempted to replicate the device. "The mechanism is displayed in a Plexiglas case," says Eleni Daniels, a consultant for the museum. Owen Edwards is a contributing editor for Edutopia and Smithsonian magazines. The Antikythera Mechanism: The World’s First Analog Computer. 2000-year-old computer recreated. 2000-year-old computer recreated. Imaging the Antikythera Computer | Gadget Lab. 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. The Antikythera mechanism, however, was more than a toy: the team of scientists behind the expensive new research announced this week that that they’d solved the puzzle of its purpose, confirming that the mechanical computer was designed to track the movements of heavenly bodies, specifically the sun, moon and planets. Antikythera. Antikythera or Anticythera (/ˌæntɪkɪˈθɪərə/; Ancient 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.[2] Antikythera may also refer to the Antikythera Strait, through which Modified Mediterranean Water enters the Sea of Crete.[3] Its main settlement and port is Potamós (pop. 18 inhabitants in 2001 census). The only other settlements are Galanianá (pop. 17), and Charchalianá (pop. 9). Antikythera is sporadically visited by the LANE Lines ferry Vitsentzos Kornaros, on its route between Piraeus (Athens) and Kissamos-Kastelli in Crete. History[edit] The earliest known inhabitants (5th or 4th millennium BC) were likely seasonal hunters who traveled there to exploit the presence of migratory birds.
Fauna[edit] Notable people[edit] Andreas Anagnostakis (1826–1897) physician References[edit] Streaming video: Antikythera. ENIAC. Glen Beck (background) and Betty Snyder (foreground) program ENIAC in BRL building 328. (U.S. Army photo) ENIAC (/ˈini.æk/ or /ˈɛni.æk/; Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer)[1][2][3] was the first electronic general-purpose computer. It was Turing-complete, digital, and capable of being reprogrammed to solve "a large class of numerical problems".[4][5] ENIAC was initially designed to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory.[6][7] When ENIAC was announced in 1946 it was heralded in the press as a "Giant Brain".[8] It had a speed of one thousand times that of electro-mechanical machines.
ENIAC's design and construction was financed by the United States Army, Ordnance Corps, Research and Development Command which was led by Major General Gladeon Marcus Barnes. ENIAC was conceived and designed by John Mauchly and J. Description[edit] ENIAC vacuum tubes in holders Cpl. Reliability[edit] Programming[edit] World’s First Computer Rebuilt, Rebooted After 2,000 Years | Gadget Lab. 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. Such craftsmanship wouldn’t be seen for another 1,000 years — but its purpose was a mystery for decades. Many scientists have worked since the 1950s to piece together the story, with the help of some very sophisticated imaging technology in recent years, including X-ray and gamma-ray imaging and 3-D computer modeling. Now, though, it has been rebuilt. World's first computer may be even older than thought. 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. One new clue I mentioned to the origin of the mechanism comes from the Olympiad dial - there are six sets of games named on the dial, five of which have been deciphered so far. Four of them, including the Olympics, were major games known across the Greek world.
Analog computer. 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. Analog computers were widely used in scientific and industrial applications where digital computers of the time lacked sufficient performance. Analog computers can have a very wide range of complexity.
Slide rules and nomographs are the simplest, while naval gunfire control computers and large hybrid digital/analog computers were among the most complicated.[1] Systems for process control and protective relays used analog computation to perform control and protective functions. Setup[edit] Setting up an analog computer required scale factors to be chosen, along with initial conditions—that is, starting values. Precursors[edit]