Communications of the ACM
A Lego Reconstruction of the World's Earliest Computer
Lego Antikythera mechanism.
Small Mammal
Here's a brand new stop-motion video of a reconstruction of the world's first mechanical computer, directed by occasional Technology Review contributor John Pavlus. It's entirely self-explanatory: watch it and read on.
One hundred years before the birth of Christ, when agriculture and the wheel was for most of human civilization the apex of technological achievement, the Greeks built a mechanical computer so sophisticated that it could add and subtract—all in the name of predicting the next lunar eclipse.
In 2010, Apple engineer Andrew Carol created, based on previous reconstructions of the so-called "Antikythera" mechanism, which was discovered in a shipwreck in 1901, a fully functioning Lego replica of the device. Like the original, it accurately predicts solar eclipses.
From Technology Review
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