It probably was. Mind you the craftsman probably made more than one of that type of thing, but each would have been to order for the customer, and designed to the needs and budget of the customer. Want a different calendar - no problem at all. Want to skip the phases of the moon - that will save you some money. Want to add something else - just a bit more cash.
This was made by a master craftsman, but in there wouldn't have been a large number of people who could afford such a thing. It is possible the craftsman was paid to never made another so the buyer can show off something unique.
It wouldn’t have been very customizable. The mechanism uses gear trains with shared gears. The are physical constraints to what gear ratios work in addition to the constraint of integer tooth counts. The interdependency is inherent to the design.
But gear tooth counts are easy to change for a different ratio. This was not mass produced, everything was made to fit this machine. So the shared gears can change within the limits.
It is possible the craftsman was paid to never made another so the buyer can show off something unique.
It's possible that Facebook will ring me today to make me VP of R&D and pay me $5m a year. But I have no reason to believe that is so, and nor do you, and nor does anyone about the craftsman who made the Antikythera Mechanism! There is no reason to believe that the thing was customized from a menu of functionality - it's just as likely that a machine like this was the tool of a navigator or sea captain and one of a hand made, very expensive, but standard type. Rather like a marine chronometer would have been in the 16th Century. I could argue that it's much more likely because we found the thing on a ship and so on - but there is just no evidence either way really.
On the other hand we do have references to similar machines, autonoma and so on, in ancient sources. So it certainly wasn't completely unique. The interesting thing to me is that it doesn't seem that this was translated into clock making.
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It probably was. Mind you the craftsman probably made more than one of that type of thing, but each would have been to order for the customer, and designed to the needs and budget of the customer. Want a different calendar - no problem at all. Want to skip the phases of the moon - that will save you some money. Want to add something else - just a bit more cash.
This was made by a master craftsman, but in there wouldn't have been a large number of people who could afford such a thing. It is possible the craftsman was paid to never made another so the buyer can show off something unique.
It wouldn’t have been very customizable. The mechanism uses gear trains with shared gears. The are physical constraints to what gear ratios work in addition to the constraint of integer tooth counts. The interdependency is inherent to the design.
But gear tooth counts are easy to change for a different ratio. This was not mass produced, everything was made to fit this machine. So the shared gears can change within the limits.
It's possible that Facebook will ring me today to make me VP of R&D and pay me $5m a year. But I have no reason to believe that is so, and nor do you, and nor does anyone about the craftsman who made the Antikythera Mechanism! There is no reason to believe that the thing was customized from a menu of functionality - it's just as likely that a machine like this was the tool of a navigator or sea captain and one of a hand made, very expensive, but standard type. Rather like a marine chronometer would have been in the 16th Century. I could argue that it's much more likely because we found the thing on a ship and so on - but there is just no evidence either way really.
On the other hand we do have references to similar machines, autonoma and so on, in ancient sources. So it certainly wasn't completely unique. The interesting thing to me is that it doesn't seem that this was translated into clock making.
I agree with everything you wrote. I hope people don't mistake the possible for likely