[vinceguidry]

One of the things that threw me off when watching forging YouTube videos like Alec Steele was that he would take on these historical projects like Renaissance weaponry but using super-modern power hammers and such. But they actually had power hammers in the Renaissance, Wikipedia calls them trip hammers. They didn't appear in Europe until the Middle Ages, but similar devices were used in China 2000 (!) years ago.

The things you can do with just water, wind, and wood are incredible.

[mrec]

"They" had analogue computers [1] and steam turbines [2] two millenia ago. Power hammers a few centuries ago seem pretty mild by comparison.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile

[thfuran]

I don't think I'd really call that a computer any more than I'd call an old watch a computer.

[close04]

The line is pretty blurry. This (relatively) modern device [0] is a computer although it's probably less complex than some of the ancient ones.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumaresq

[adrianN]

Mechanical computers for fire control where the standard solution until very recently. Here's a very interesting video about them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4

[kilo_bravo_3]

Anything that computes is a computer.

Even plastic circles with writing on them designed to compute the effects of a nuclear bomb's blast:

https://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/sliderules/nucbombeffcom...

[stcredzero]

I don't think I'd really call that a computer any more than I'd call an old watch a computer.

The some of the targeting computers aboard the USS Iowa worked in part by the same principles. (The Mk 8 Rangekeeper)

The continuous control mixing of the XC-142 tiltwing (1960's version of the V-22 Osprey) as it changed from vertical to horizontal mode, was all done with cams, gears, and levers.

[sansnomme]

The Aeolipile is notoriously inefficient though.

[LyndsySimon]

I understand it to have been essentially a proof of concept, not something that was intended to provide motive power to a machine. Given that, its simplicity would likely have been more valuable than its efficiency.

[olliej]

Power hammers have been in use for hundreds of years at least - the change is almost entirely in the size of the power source (modern engine vs a waterwheel). Power hammers were the reason cams were invented.

Whoops: I had conflated trip hammers and power hammers. Power hammers date to the mid 1800s. (Kids this is why you look up citations before you post :) )