(February 9, 2013 at 8:44 am)Aractus Wrote: No it isn't. It isn't used for any calculations, it cannot perform them, it's only a mechanical calendar.
There's a calender on there but it was used to calculate data not just display a date and time. This would make it a computer albeit a clockwork computer.
(February 9, 2013 at 8:44 am)Aractus Wrote: c. 100BC. But no, it wasn't "advanced". It was one of the most advanced things they had, but it would have been based off the mechanics of the Archimedes odometer. And I really doubt that we found the "only one" ever built, I believe there would have been more. The "Byzantine Sundial Calendar" c. late 600's AD/early 700's AD. It uses the same types of gears as the AM (although not as many). So your argument that the technology wasn't seen for 1800 years is incorrect, we know that the technology was used at least from the time of Archimedes to the time the Byzantine Sundial Calendar was made (2nd century BC-5th century AD).
It's generally agreed that the technology used was way ahead of it's time.
"Believed to operate by crank and containing inter-meshing gears, the mechanism could be used to calculate eclipses and moon cycles. The technology was comparable to astronomical clocks that only appeared some 1,600 years later."
http://phys.org/news/2012-10-archaeologi...-site.html