[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.