Thanks, that's an excellent article. I'm still not really convinced that Archimedes made it, as it would be a massive coincidence for the only device we found to be the same one described in a book by some notable figure. It seems plausible that Archimedes may have created the original design, though.

I assume that the average person who encountered one would have been very impressed, so I find it really surprising that we don't have more texts that at least mention the existence of these devices.

Your assumption about average people might be giving undue credit. Average people werent literate. They might not have any use for a calendar or know about astronomy if they even believed in the constellations as something other than godly.

Very few people were in the circles of the highly educated. With many other intricate, rare instruments throughout history, the case is that they were commissioned by the extraordinarily wealthy from the most notable scholars and inventors

Sorry, I meant the average educated person who might write a book. It just seems strange that we have only one reference to the device in all surviving classical literature