Ancient Greek 'computer' came with a user guide

Fox News ^ | 28 June 2016 | Megan Gannon

[blueplum]

....With the turn of a hand crank, the ancient Greeks could track the positions of the sun and the moon, the lunar phases, and even cycles of Greek athletic competitions.

The 82 corroded metal fragments of the Antikythera mechanism contain ancient Greek text, much of which is unreadable to the naked eye. But over the past 10 years, new imaging techniques, such as 3D X-ray scanning, have revealed hidden letters and words in the text...

[09Patriot]

it says..press control alt delete—bilicus gaticus

[09Patriot]

it says..press control alt delete—bilicus gaticus

[saintgermaine]

Some times if you are able to take some time out from your busy life style you may want to read some of the Earth Chronicle’s by Zecharia Sitchin. I don’t quite agree with everything but a good portion of it.

[Albion Wilde]

Ping!

[dp0622]

what the *** would a 48 year old man do with a Facebook account unless he was a f*****. sounds like you’re familiar with Facebook

[dp0622]

thanks. What would the most current example be?

[KarlInOhio]

I can see how you would use a shadow to calculate latitude, but how would it be used for longitude? Everywhere on the same latitude has the same path of the sun’s shadow during a day. The fraction of a degree change in the sun’s position from one day to the next would have been too small to detect.

[Company Man]

An analog computer is still a computer, nonetheless.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Albion Wilde. Instead of another Antikythera topic, I'd enjoy some about Auntie Grizelda.

• The World's First Computer May Have Been Used To Tell Fortunes [Engraved text translation] [2016]
• Is This Ancient Greek 'Laptop' Proof That Time Travel Is Real? [in short, no] [2016]
• Marine Archaeologists Excavate Greek Antikythera Shipwreck [2015]
• Scientist tackles mystery of ancient astronomical device [2015]
• Stunning finds from ancient Greek shipwreck [Antikythera] [2014]
• 'Exosuit' Mission to 2,000-Year-Old Shipwreck Begins [2014]
• Wearable submarine to hunt for 2000-year-old computer [2014]
• Return to Antikythera: what divers discovered in the deep [2013]
• Famed Roman Shipwreck Could Be Two [2013]
• Astronomy Picture of the Day -- The Antikythera Mechanism [2013]
• Return to Antikythera: Divers revisit wreck where ancient computer found [2012]
• Lego Antikythera Mechanism [2010]
• Ancient astronomy: Mechanical inspiration [2010]
• Shining a light on the past [2010]
• Coast-2-Coast AM Saturday Sept 26th --Mysterious Artifact (Antikythera mechanism) [2009]
• Shocking Discovery: a PC in B.C.? (Antikythera Mechanism) [2009]
• Archimedes and the 2000-year-old computer [2008]
• Secrets of Antikythera Mechanism, world's oldest calculating machine, revealed [2008]
• Discovering How Greeks Computed in 100 B.C. [2008]
• Medieval Calculator Up For Grabs [2008]
• OOPARTS (Out of Place Artifacts) [2007]
• Astronomy Picture of the day [2006]
• Enigma of ancient world's computer is cracked at last [2006]
• In search of lost time (Antikythera Mechanism) [2006]
• Scientists Unravel Mystery of Ancient Greek Machine [2006]
• An Ancient Computer Surprises Scientists (2200yo Roman computer!) [2006]
• Ancient calculator was 1,000 yrs ahead of its time [2006]
• Were Greeks 1,400 years ahead of their time? [2006]
• The Antikythera Mechanism (Computer -- 56BC) [2006]
• Kurzweil featured on new syndicated radio show "Science Fantastic" hosted by Michio Kaku [2006]
• Unearthing the Treasures of the Mediterranean [2005]
• The Antikythera Mechanism: Physical and Intellectual Salvage from the 1st Century B.C. [2004]
• Strange stories, weird facts [2004]
• Did The Ancient Greeks Make A Computer? [2003]

[DouglasKC]

It would be cool if someone with an engineering knack would make a working replica of the device

Someone did...I saw a documentary about it a couple of years back..

[Forward the Light Brigade]

I believe it was a navigational tool and only proves the Ancient Greek/Romans were a lot smarter than we think.

[PIF]

I don’t remember how it was done from the book I read but the pre-dynastic Egyptians managed it, building various temples, each relative to each other on longitudinal lines from Egypt to Greece to the middle east. The ancient Chinese managed along the same lines. Like I said the “how” is lost.

[Graybeard58]

The one from 2003 was posted by my grand daughter - “Holly__P.

[Graybeard58]

She transcribed it from a book she was reading and didn’t know how to make paragraph breaks yet.

[SunkenCiv]

I think I reposted that same one, which was my contribution to the Antikythera Mechanism catalog here on FR. :’)

[dfwgator]

It ran on Windows 65BC.

[imardmd1]

Ah, yes. My senior engineering year was 1962 - - finished up actually in the fall semester. I did a project that required performing a linear regression of the line by least-squares analysis of the data points, The college let me take home a Friden calculator, and I spent many night going clackety-clack to do the multipllication of the x and y values of the points. Took a lot of time. but it worked. Could not have reasonably done it by hand. Life was (is) too short.

But that Friden calculator helped prepare my senior thesis, presented at the 1962 annual Gordon Research Conference by my advisor.

Twenty years later, I could do all this with a Sharp hand-held calculator with a little LCD screen. Just enter in the data pairs, then hit a button, and one got the predicted constants for the y = mx + b equation as well as the standard deviation predicted. Taught my lab technicians how to analyze our experimental results with the hand calculators.

About the same time, I saw that Lotus 1-2-3 made it possible to do matrix multiplication using a spreadsheet, and used it to conduct experimental design and evaluation of the results that comprised ten variables. What a difference!

[r_barton]

A clay tablet keeps popping out of it saying, “Your Windows 10 upgrade is ready!” ;-)

[2111USMC]

We had one of those in our Business Machines class in high school (around 1970).

[This_far]

what the *** would a 48 year old man do with a Facebook account unless he was a f*****. sounds like you’re familiar with Facebook

I'm very sorry but I'm not a genius, either accredited or self professed so I shall keep my reply within the bounds of the English language, decent society and semi literate discourse.

I shall also ask you to explain your continuous use of swears or thinly veiled insertions. Perhaps you might explain your unique hashtag code as replicated above?

3 * equals what?

f and 5 * equal what?

Why did you just denigrate all men who are 47 to 49 years old who have a Facebook account?

I wonder if you get you hashtags from Skinner or KOS since many of your posts could be used negatively about this site.