Dead
Media | 0.01-02.0 | 02.1-04.0
| 04.1-06.0 | 06.1-08.0 |
08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |
Subject: Dead Media Working Note 03.4
Dead Medium: the Zuse Ziffernrechner; the V1, Z1, Z2, Z3
and Z4 program-controlled electromechanical digital
computers; the death of Konrad Zuse
(((Konrad Zuse, legendary computer pioneer, died December
18, 1995. The following obituaries and personal
reminiscences cast several interesting sidelights on the
birth of digital computation and the mishaps of Zuse's
museum-piece computers.)))
From the Guardian newspaper in Britain:
FIRST ON THE DIGITAL TRACK by Jack Schofield
KONRAD ZUSE, who invented the digital computer while
no one else was looking, has died in Berlin at the age of
85. He was born in Berlin-Wilmersdorf and built his first
mechanical calculating machine in his parents' living room
between 1936 and 1938.
In Britain and the US. similar but later developments
were supported for their military significance, but Zuse's
work was largely ignored. When he and his colleagues later
proposed the construction of a 2,000-tube computer for
special use in anti-aircraft defence, they were asked how
long it would take. Zuse says they replied: "Around two
years." The response to this was: "And just how long do
you think it'll take us to win the war?"
Zuse started to develop his ideas about computing in
1934, a year before he graduated from the Technische
Hochschule with a degree in civil engineering. He then
went to work for the Henschel aircraft company as a design
engineer or statiker. This involved solving tedious linear
equations, which stimulated Zuse to apply his ideas and
try to build a system to solve them automatically.
His first machine, the V1 (with hindsight renamed the
Z1) was made of pins and steel plates, but it represented
two dramatic advances. First, it was a general purpose
machine, whereas most calculating machines were dedicated
to specific tasks. Second, it used binary (on/off or
stop/start) numbers instead of decimal ones, as Babbage's
far earlier machines had done. This made Zuse's machine
far easier to construct, although it was to remain
somewhat unreliable.
Although both decisions seem obvious now, they were
far from obvious at the time. Zuse's choice of a general
purpose approach was based on his separation of the
different elements: an arithmetic unit to do the
calculations, a memory for storing numbers, a control
system to supervise operations, plus input and output
stages. This is still the basis of modern computers.
Babbage had taken the same line 100 years earlier
with his analytical engine, but it proved too difficult to
build. Zuse succeeded partly because he chose the binary
numbering system instead of using decimals. Binary means
counting in twos, which is far more long-winded than
counting in tens. However, to count in twos you only need
an on/off switch, which is very much easier to construct
than the 10-position decimal equivalent. Each operation
mav not do much work. but the speed of the simpler
switching operation makes up for it.
Of course, mechanical switches are still somewhat
primitive, and Zuse started to replace bulky mechanical
ones in Z1 with second-hand electro-magnetic relays - the
switches used in telephone systems. At the time, Zuse's
college friend Helmut Schreyer "suddenly had the bright
idea of using vacuum tubes. At first I thought it was one
of his student pranks." Vacuum tubes, or valves, would
work the same way but work at least a thousand times
faster. Zuse was soon convinced it was the right
approach, and this led to the design of the Z3, which was
probably the first operational, general-purpose,
programmable computer.
Zuse sold the idea to the Aerodynamics Research
Institute, and set up a 15-man company to construct it.
The machine was completed by December 1941, though it was
later destroyed by Allied bombing. As Zuse recalled, the
"construction of the Z3 was interrupted in 1939 when I was
called up for military service. However, in my spare time,
and with the help of friends, I was able to complete the
machine."
Only one of Zuse's computers survived the war: the
Z4. This was started in 1942, but it was becoming
increasingly difficult to find parts, and in 1943, the
Berlin blitz began. The machine was moved around the city
to avoid air raids, and then moved to Gottingen, before
finally being shifted to Hinterstein, a small village in.
Bavaria. After the end of the war, the Z4 was moved to
Zurich in Switzerland, and in 1950, this Ziffernrechner,
or number calculator, was installed at the Federal
Polytechnical Institute.
Zuse's developments attracted the attention of IBM
which seemed mainly interested in his patents - and
Remington Rand, amongst others, but discussions came to
nothing. In 1949, he founded his own computer company,
Zuse KG, which developed a line of Z computers, and
eventually employed about 1,000 people. However, short of
capital, he gradually sold out to Siemens, the giant
industrial conglomerate, and devoted himself to research.
In later life, Zuse received many honours, and in
1984 a research institute, the Konrad Zuse Centre for
Information Technology (ZIB) was named after him. A copy
of his first programme-controlled electro-mechanical
digital computer, the Z3, was made in 1960 and put on
display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. A copy of the
Z1 was constructed in 1989, and can be found in the Museum
for Transport and Technology in Berlin.
Konrad Zuse, scientist and inventor, born June 2, 1910
died December 18, 1995.
((("J. A. N. Lee" (janlee_AT_VTOPUS.CS.VT.EDU) offers a
second Zuse obituary.)))
Subject: Konrad Zuse
The last of our great pioneers of the 1930's died Monday,
December 18. Konrad Zuse, developer of the Z-1 through Z-4
machines was clearly one of those who foresaw the
development of the computer and did something about it
well before those whom we will acknowledge next year in
Philadelphia. Zuse's image suffered from his location
both in geography and time, since we now know that his
work included in an elementary way many of the features of
modern machines.
I had the pleasure of meeting with Dr. Zuse on
several occasions, the last at the IFIP World Computer
Congress in Hamburg in August 1994 where he drew standing
room only audiences in a conference that was not that well
attended elsewhere. I have only seen one obituary so far,
and I am disappointed that it did not also mention his
artistic capabilities also. His paintings were
magnificent, and his recent portraits of German computer
pioneers (prepared for the IFIP Congress) showed yet
another side of this multi-talented pioneer. I was hoping
that we could attract him to attend the ENIAC celebrations
in February next, but sadly that opportunity is gone.
I for one will miss him. He was always the one with
the joke and for greeting one with humor. I was in a
meeting with him the day the Berlin Wall came down. I
asked him what he felt about this, to which he replied
"Now we can get on with our work!"
(((From: Paul Ceruzzi (NASEM001_AT_SIVM.SI.EDU) )))
Subject: Konrad Zuse
I learned this morning of the death of Konrad Zuse,
at age 85. As many of you know, Zuse conceived of the
notion of a general purpose digital computer, using binary
arithmetic, while a student in Berlin in the 1930s. With
the help of his parents and a few friends he set out to
build one in his parents' apartment.
At the outbreak of the Second World War he was released
from service in the German army to work at the Henschel
Aircraft Company, where he was a stress analyst. He
continued working on his computing ideas, and in December
1941 he completed a machine that computed in binary, using
floating point, with a 64-word memory, and which was
programmed by paper tape. This machine is regarded as the
first general purpose, functional digital computer in the
world. It was destroyed during the war. Later on Zuse gave
it the name "Z3," by which it is now known. In 1962 Zuse,
now the head of a commercial computer company, built a
reconstruction based on drawings that did survive. This
computer, which I saw in operation at the Deutsches Museum
a few years ago, is now itself one of the oldest operable
computers in the world!
Zuse actively promoted his role as a computer
pioneer, and he always stressed the historical claims of
the Z3. I think that he felt less proud of the fact that
he also founded a company, since it did not survive (it
was eventually absorbed by Siemens). My guess is that as
time goes on he may be more remembered for being one of
the first "start-ups" as for his Z3.
Zuse was the last of the "first tier" of computer
pioneers: Aiken, Stibitz, Eckert, Mauchly, Atanasoff,
Turing. Incredible to think that so many of them were
alive while all the madness of computering in the past
couple of years has been going on. I knew him personally
and will miss him very much.
Dead
Media | 0.01-02.0 | 02.1-04.0
| 04.1-06.0 | 06.1-08.0 |
08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |