Clock Computers

Following decades of work cleaning the device, in 1951 British science historian Derek J. de Solla Price undertook systematic investigation of the mechanism.

Price published several papers on "Clockwork before the Clock".[24][25] and "On the Origin of Clockwork",[26] before the first major publication in June 1959 on the mechanism: "An Ancient Greek Computer".[27] This was the lead article in Scientific American and appears to have been initially published at the prompting of Arthur C. Clarke, according to the book Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World (see end of chapter 3). In "An Ancient Greek Computer" Price advanced the theory that the Antikythera mechanism was a device for calculating the motions of stars and planets, which would make the device the first known analog computer. Until that time, the Antikythera mechanism's function was largely unknown, though it had been correctly identified as an astronomical device, perhaps being an astrolabe.