Was the Antikythera Mechanism the world's first computer?Andrew Ramsey, X-Tek's computer-tomography specialist, who was operating the viewer, zoomed around inside the 3-D representation until he found the right slice. Written on the side of the gear were the letters "M" and "E" -- "ME." Was this the maker's mark? Or could "ME" mean "Part 45"? ("ME" is the symbol for forty-five in ancient Greek.) Freeth joked that Mike Edmunds had scratched his initials on the fragment. Others suggested that this particular piece of the Mechanism could have been recycled, and that the "ME" was left over from some earlier device.
by John Seabrook
The New Yorker
May 14, 2007
Altogether, the team salvaged about a thousand new letters and inscriptions from the Mechanism -- doubling the number available to Price. Together with earlier imaging, the new inscriptions support theories that both Price and Wright had advanced. On Fragment E, for example, the group read "235 divisions on the spiral." "I was amazed," Freeth said. "This completely vindicated Price's idea of the Metonic cycle of two hundred and thirty-five lunar months on the upper back dial." They also read words explaining that on the extremity of "the pointer stands a little golden sphere," which probably refers to a representation of the sun on the sun pointer that went around the zodiac dial at the front of the Mechanism. Wright had proposed that the rings of the back dials were made in the form of spirals; the word eliki, meaning "spiral," can be seen on Fragment E. On Fragment 22, the number "223" has been observed, pointing to the use of the saros dial as an eclipse indicator.
..."So you think that the letters 'ME' -- "
"Precisely," Wright interjected. "I think they must relate to whatever that bit of metal was used for before."
On another thread, or several, the death of the music CD was noted. Music recordings have been around since Edison, so this is a relatively new phenomenon—recorded music. But wait! Mechanical devices for playing music have been around far longer than that. This antikythera thing is merely one mechanical thing from an age when they were making all kinds of mechanical things including things that play music. So, the CD goes away, but recorded music is ancient and will continue.