[jacquesm]

> whether the Antikythera computer is Turing complete?

Of course it isn't. Just like many analogue computers put together for the computation of ballistic trajectories or some other physical modeling task are not Turing complete. That doesn't mean they are not computers, just not general purpose computers.

[hacknat]

By that definition the abacus is the first computer. I don’t disagree with you that Turing completeness isn’t a good definition of a computer (especially since the word itself is quite old and has been in use longer than even Babbage’s computer).

[jacquesm]

> By that definition the abacus is the first computer.

It isn't. The abacus does not compute anything at all unless used as a tool by a human that executes the algorithm. The Antikythera has its algorithm built in, it will compute the same numbers no matter who turns the crank. It's a stored program computer where the program is stored in the proportions of the gears in its gearbox.

Think of an abacus as an aid to manual computation, and a Antikythera as something that actually computes.