2000 year old computer discovered. How tech and shipwrecs are rewriting human history

Using robots, underwater iPads, 3D printing, and other new tech, scientists are discovering shipwrecks that are rewriting our history. Read the inside story of the Antikythera and two other breakthrough explorations.

Under oceans across the world, hundreds of shipwrecks lie silent and forgotten. Having set sail to discover, trade, or wage war, the boats never reached safe harbour and exist now as time capsules beneath the waves.

When they took to the seas, some of these vessels were the state of the art, laden with some of the most advanced technology of their era. Now, thanks to the most advanced tech of our time, some long-sought wrecks are finally being found and explored for the first time.

TechRepublic talked to the teams behind some of the most high-profile shipwrecks to be discovered in recent years to find out how they've located the ships and uncovered their secrets—including a 2,000 year old device that may have been the world's first computer.

The Antikythera: If you thought the computer era started with the Colussus, or even with Babbage's designs, you'd be wrong. The advent of computing began before the birth of Jesus, with a small bronze mechanism that was lost under the sea off Crete for over a thousand years.

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