JUL 31, 2006 - Antikythera Mechanism is an excellent introduction to what appears to be the world's oldest computer: an astrological/astronomical analog calculation engine, from back in the days when there was no difference between astronomy and astrology. The remains of the device were found by a Greek sponge diver over 100 years ago, in the wreck of a merchant ship that sank over 2,000 years ago. It's fascinating to contemplate, as this article does, how the ancient Antikythera device served to compute horoscopes in days long past - and how today's technology grew out of that device, in a lineage that stretches back to the ancient Greeks, and from them through the medieval Arabs to the Industrial Revolution and our whole modern technological civilization.
