[JoeFromSidney]

The Antikythera Mechanism, whatever its purpose, was an analog computer. It was not the ancestor of today's digital computers. Babbage's Difference Engine, however, would have been a digital computer.

[Viking2002]

[Paladin2]

Analog computers are pretty fast.

[skinkinthegrass]

Check this out:
< http://www.vcalc.net/cu.htm >

[Rockingham]

The Antikythera Mechanism cannot reasonably be called a predecessor of today's computers because there was no technological continuity. The making of such a device was exceptional in the ancient world and did not carry forward from that era to ours so as to spur the development of modern computers.

Nevertheless, the Antikythera Mechanism suggests both the sophistication of Greek science and technology and that generations of potential technical and material progress were forfeited through lack of institutions to carry them forward from one generation to the next.

The university, a creation of the Renaissance, made the preservation, development, and dissemination of knowledge an institutional imperative. Just as important, in the 18th Century, businessmen and investors became willing to fund the development of technology for the sake of profit through sales of new mechanical devices.

Taking a broader view of the matter, due to the limitations of ancient societies, the Antikythera Mechanism was an isolated bit of genius with no progeny and no business case. It took the creation of universities and modern capitalism to make the technological revolution of the modern world.