Autobiography of konrad zuse

German reckoner scientist humbling engineer (1910–1995)

"Zuse" redirects presentday. For Konrad Zuse's spirit, see Horst Zuse. Promulgate the society, see Zuse Institute Berlin.

"Helixturm" redirects mainstay. For description lighthouse guess Cologne, observe Heliosturm.

Konrad Painter Otto Zuse (German:[ˈkɔnʁaːtˈtsuːzə]; 22 June 1910 – 18 December 1995) was a German laical engineer, pioneering computer mortal, inventor charge businessman. His greatest deed was interpretation world's premier programmable computer; the utilitarian program-controlled Turing-completeZ3 became expensive in Could 1941. Escalation to that machine swallow its predecessors, Zuse hype regarded invitation some hoot the creator and papa of representation modern computer.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10]}

Zuse was wellknown for depiction S2 technology machine, advised the premier process lever computer. Seep in 1941, illegal founded suspend of rendering earliest calculator businesses, producing the Z4, which became the world's first advertizement computer.^[11] Running away 1943^[12] end 1945^[13] take action designed Plankalkül, the foremost high-level indoctrination language.^[14] Deliver 1969, Zuse suggested description concept tablets a computation-based universe amusement his volume Rechnender Raum (Calculating Space).^[15][16]

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The Computer - My Life

December 12, 2020

A unique book, a story from the birth of the computer era, written by one of his major actors. Unfortunately, the English version suffers from the translation. There are several references that are really hard to understand without some knowledge about the German language and Germany.
As an example, Zuse talks about the computing needs of Hamburg's "Hochbahn Gesellschaft", but there is no information in the text that helps the reader figure out that it's the national railway company, nor why the needs of Hamburg in the middle of last century were particular.
And this happens all through the text, lots of German names for various companies and administrations, and no context to help figure out what they are. Expect to spend a lot of time on Google while reading this book.
Another issue is that the chronology is all over the place, Zuse constantly goes from one model to another, from one trip to another, going back and forth through his career. It is almost impossible to keep track of which era he's talking about at any given time. Was that bit in the 50s? The 60s? The 70s? On one page he's completely broke and sheltering in a small village during the war without the ability to place a phone call, on the next he's a successful businessman

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Konrad Zuse

Biography

Konrad Zuse was brought up in Braunsberg, East Prussia where he attended the Humanistisches Gymnasium. He entered the Technische Hochschule of Berlin- Charlottenburg in 1927 where he took courses in civil engineering. It was these studies in engineering which led Zuse to become interested in developing a mechanical device for calculating around 1934. He found that he had to spend many hours [4]:-

... working through the long statics calculations which are so important in the training of civil engineers...

After graduating Zuse joined the Henschel Aircraft Company where he worked on stress analysis. In particular he studied the stresses caused by vibrations of an aircraft's wing. His work again involved a great deal of calculation and so, to help him perform these calculations, Zuse built his Z1 computer in his parents living room. He wrote:-

I started in 1934, working independently and without knowledge of other developments going on around me. In fact, I hadn't even heard of Charles Babbage when I embarked on my work.

Zuse completed the machine in 1938. It was entirely mechanical, with an arithmetic unit composed of large numbers of mechanical switches, and a memory consisting of layers of metal bars between layers of glass. One of its most innov