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Wow, this is fascinating. > Plankalkül (German pronunciation: [ˈplaːnkalkyːl]) is a programming language designed for engineering purposes by Konrad Zuse betwe

Wow, this is fascinating. > Plankalkül (German pronunciation: [ˈplaːnkalkyːl]) is a programming language designed for engineering purposes by Konrad Zuse between 1942 and 1945. It was the first high-level programming language to be designed for a computer. Apparently it influenced ALGOL 58 as well. Implementations were made: > Plankalkül was more comprehensively published [vague] in 1972. The first compiler was implemented by Joachim Hohmann in his 1975 dissertation. Other independent implementations followed in 1998 and 2000 at the Free University of Berlin. Here is something about primitive data types: > The only primitive data type in the Plankalkül is a single bit or boolean (German: Ja-Nein-Werte – yes-no value in Zuses terminology). It is denoted by the identifier S 0 {\displaystyle S0} {\displaystyle S0}. All the further data types are composite, and build up from primitive by means of "arrays" and "records". Cool. Also this reminded me - nothing happens in a vacuum: > In 1945, Zuse described Plankalkül in an unpublished book. The collapse of Nazi Germany, however, prevented him from submitting his manuscript. I don’t know what the significance of that statement is and I won’t baselessly speculate, but it sure makes me curious. It also reminds me of some messages I remember seeing from Russian founders in the recent past.

retrac 4y ago
> I don’t know what the significance of that statement is and I won’t baselessly speculate, but it sure makes me curious. Zuse wrote an autobiography, and it has been translated into English -- https://www.amazon.ca/Computer-My-Life-Konrad-Zuse/dp/3540564535 https://www.amazon.ca/Computer-My-Life-Konrad-Zuse/dp/354056... Chapter 5 - Origins of the Z4 - News from the United States - Attempt at a Ph. D. dissertation - Computing machine for logic operations - Final months of the war in Berlin - The evacuation - Z4 completed in Göttingen - Final war days in the Allgäu Early in the war, he got drafted into the army and got a release for his technical work. By the end of the war, he was working on the Z4 to assist calculations for war work at a lab in Berlin. In early 1945, his labs and work were heavily damaged by bombing, some of the machines destroyed. He packaged up what remained physically and shipped it by rail to a town to the southeast. He resumed work there for a few weeks. He then they fled, as many other groups did at this time, to the very south in German-controlled territory that would become part of the American sector. He does write a bit about that period: > Dr. Funk obtained the necessary papers for me, my wife and all my assistants to get out of Berlin. Only a few chose to stay. It was painful for me to leave my parents behind in Berlin. They had supported me all those years. I was able to take the most important papers with me. But what was important? With hindsight I would have known better. On this occasion, too, much of value was lost. > In Gottingen, a relative calm filled the weeks that followed. The Z4 was assembled in the Aerodynamischer Versuchanstalt. We were able to get it running so well that it executed the first program-controlled calculations. While we demonstrated for the gentlemen of the Aerodynamischer Versuchanstalt, including the famous Professors Prandtl and Kuessner -- we could aready hear the thunder of the cannons in Kassel. today we know that we could have been overrun in Gottingen, but at the time no one could have known what would happen. Gottingen could have become a theater of the war, for it was not far from the great underground ordinance factories in the Harz region. Later, Gottingen was occupied by the British. They definitely would have been very interested in the Z4. And we could have been sent to England along with our machine. But this was not to be. > The Z4 was our first priority. Finally we got the "order" to deliver it to one of the underground ordinance factories. The visit there was for us - we were completely accustomed to the Berlin bombings - deeply shocking. For the first time we stood face to face with the inhuman atrocities of the Third Reich. Twenty thousand concentration camp prisoners worked under unimaginable conditions in kilometre-long tunnels. During the retreat from the East, far too many prisoners were assembled together here, and no provisions had been made to assure that there would be enough food for them. After the visit we told ourselves, "Anywhere, but not here!" We asked them for just one Wehrmacht truck and trailer with which to transport the device. > Around the same time Wernher von Braun's team was moved from the Harz to Bavaria; and through General Dornberger we were able to get our marching orders for Bavaria, along with a thousand liters of diesel fuel. For fourteen days we fled along the front, past burning neighborhoods and over bombed-out streets. We usually drove at night; during the day we found makeshift shelter with the farmers. [...] > The night drive through Munich was really eerie: the streets were deserted, the city veiled in darkness, air raids were expected. But nothing happened this night. There was a ghostly silence. We drove straight through and did not stop until we reached the Alps. For the first time in my life, I saw the high mountain region. How peaceful the cloister of Ettal seemed. But we had to push on. In Oberjoch bei Hindelang we finally found temporary quarters, which we shared with Wernher von Braun and his assistants.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
pasquinelli 4y ago
i somehow stumbled on a site covering zuse's concept of calculating space when i was a teenager, and i think the idea really struck me a lot harder than it seemed at the time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculating_Space https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculating_Space
- BoiledCabbage 4y ago
  An English translation of his paper: http://www.mathrix.org/zenil/ZuseCalculatingSpace-GermanZenil.pdf http://www.mathrix.org/zenil/ZuseCalculatingSpace-GermanZeni... Essentially thoughts about physics grounded in the digital based cellular automata. Haven't finished reading it yet, so can't judge it one way or another.
  - le-mark 4y ago
    > physics grounded in the digital based cellular automata. The really curious thing to me is how Zuse, Von Neumann and Turing all went this direction at about the same time.
    - nielsbot 4y ago
      “multiple discovery“: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery
  - nielsbot 4y ago
    Isn’t this what Wolfram’s book is about too? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science

retrac 4y ago

> I don’t know what the significance of that statement is and I won’t baselessly speculate, but it sure makes me curious. Zuse wrote an autobiography, and it has been translated into English -- https://www.amazon.ca/Computer-My-Life-Konrad-Zuse/dp/3540564535 https://www.amazon.ca/Computer-My-Life-Konrad-Zuse/dp/354056... Chapter 5 - Origins of the Z4 - News from the United States - Attempt at a Ph. D. dissertation - Computing machine for logic operations - Final months of the war in Berlin - The evacuation - Z4 completed in Göttingen - Final war days in the Allgäu Early in the war, he got drafted into the army and got a release for his technical work. By the end of the war, he was working on the Z4 to assist calculations for war work at a lab in Berlin. In early 1945, his labs and work were heavily damaged by bombing, some of the machines destroyed. He packaged up what remained physically and shipped it by rail to a town to the southeast. He resumed work there for a few weeks. He then they fled, as many other groups did at this time, to the very south in German-controlled territory that would become part of the American sector. He does write a bit about that period: > Dr. Funk obtained the necessary papers for me, my wife and all my assistants to get out of Berlin. Only a few chose to stay. It was painful for me to leave my parents behind in Berlin. They had supported me all those years. I was able to take the most important papers with me. But what was important? With hindsight I would have known better. On this occasion, too, much of value was lost. > In Gottingen, a relative calm filled the weeks that followed. The Z4 was assembled in the Aerodynamischer Versuchanstalt. We were able to get it running so well that it executed the first program-controlled calculations. While we demonstrated for the gentlemen of the Aerodynamischer Versuchanstalt, including the famous Professors Prandtl and Kuessner -- we could aready hear the thunder of the cannons in Kassel. today we know that we could have been overrun in Gottingen, but at the time no one could have known what would happen. Gottingen could have become a theater of the war, for it was not far from the great underground ordinance factories in the Harz region. Later, Gottingen was occupied by the British. They definitely would have been very interested in the Z4. And we could have been sent to England along with our machine. But this was not to be. > The Z4 was our first priority. Finally we got the "order" to deliver it to one of the underground ordinance factories. The visit there was for us - we were completely accustomed to the Berlin bombings - deeply shocking. For the first time we stood face to face with the inhuman atrocities of the Third Reich. Twenty thousand concentration camp prisoners worked under unimaginable conditions in kilometre-long tunnels. During the retreat from the East, far too many prisoners were assembled together here, and no provisions had been made to assure that there would be enough food for them. After the visit we told ourselves, "Anywhere, but not here!" We asked them for just one Wehrmacht truck and trailer with which to transport the device. > Around the same time Wernher von Braun's team was moved from the Harz to Bavaria; and through General Dornberger we were able to get our marching orders for Bavaria, along with a thousand liters of diesel fuel. For fourteen days we fled along the front, past burning neighborhoods and over bombed-out streets. We usually drove at night; during the day we found makeshift shelter with the farmers. [...] > The night drive through Munich was really eerie: the streets were deserted, the city veiled in darkness, air raids were expected. But nothing happened this night. There was a ghostly silence. We drove straight through and did not stop until we reached the Alps. For the first time in my life, I saw the high mountain region. How peaceful the cloister of Ettal seemed. But we had to push on. In Oberjoch bei Hindelang we finally found temporary quarters, which we shared with Wernher von Braun and his assistants.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

pasquinelli 4y ago

i somehow stumbled on a site covering zuse's concept of calculating space when i was a teenager, and i think the idea really struck me a lot harder than it seemed at the time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculating_Space https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculating_Space

BoiledCabbage 4y ago
An English translation of his paper: http://www.mathrix.org/zenil/ZuseCalculatingSpace-GermanZenil.pdf http://www.mathrix.org/zenil/ZuseCalculatingSpace-GermanZeni... Essentially thoughts about physics grounded in the digital based cellular automata. Haven't finished reading it yet, so can't judge it one way or another.
- le-mark 4y ago
  > physics grounded in the digital based cellular automata. The really curious thing to me is how Zuse, Von Neumann and Turing all went this direction at about the same time.
  - nielsbot 4y ago
    “multiple discovery“: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery
- nielsbot 4y ago
  Isn’t this what Wolfram’s book is about too? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science