Usually when we think of computers, we probably imagine glowing displays, interconnected networks sharing digital information, and more software applications than anyone one person could ever come close to using -- but that's only part of computing's story. Analog computers, and later mechanical computers, were an integral part of humanity's pursuit of scientific discovery, fueled by our desire to anticipate future events and outcomes. For a species that conquered the entire world thanks to our larger brains and toolmaking prowess, it's no surprise that we've been using artificial tools to augment and enhance our intelligence as far back as our history goes -- and probably even longer than that. From the careful positioning of stones in England, to the soaring water clocks of China's Song Dynasty to the precise arrangement of mechanical gears in the visionary inventions of Blaise Pascal and Charles Babbage, analog and mechanical computers have served our forebearers well and helped them not just survive but thrive by transcending the bounds of our biology. In Salisbury Plain in the south of England, a collection of about 100 massive and roughly even-cut stones form a pair of standing rings whose purpose is lost to history, but whose construction began before the invention of the wheel and took at least 1,500 years to complete, and possibly even longer.

Google's Doodle is celebrating the Antikythera mechanism, which might just be the first computer. The mechanism was found in 1902 – exactly 115 years ago – and the discovery changed the way we saw the ancient Greeks. The man who found it, Valerios Stais, initially thought that the bronze mechanism he could see was a gear or a wheel – but on closer inspection, the metal turned out to be part of the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient and mysterious analogue astronomical computer. The machine could be used to track and predict where the planets were, understand lunar and solar eclipses, and count towards the next Olympic Games. But its uses were various – it might also have been used for unknown forms of mapping and navigation.