I wrote a paper as an space research intern about how to do high temperature electronics for a Venus probe and the paper was published before this 2017 clockwork rover idea (& I wouldn’t argue that our paper was massively groundbreaking, just sort of a new synthesis of existing ideas... our mentor already knew this was feasible):

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20150002090/downloads/20...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272522839_Venus_hig...

I like the unique constraints of trying to make the computation mechanical, but... It was IMO clear well before 2017 that the electronics option was more feasible than the mechanical approach. Glenn Research Center has had high temperature electronics for quite a while.

EDIT:And now we have full up high temperature SiC integrated circuits and memories. Totally obsoletes the hand wavy SiC circuits in my intern paper, but it is truly an amazing capability compared to anything mechanical: https://hackaday.com/2021/05/03/silicon-carbide-chips-can-go...