6 ms·

Germany's unheralded computer inventor

80 points by edw519 15y ago

ChuckMcM 15y ago
Konrad really is an unsung hero. Had he been able to publish his work and interact with others in the field I don't doubt we would all know his name.
- excuse-me 15y ago
  Although paradoxically, if circumstances had been such that he could - there wouldn't have been as much demand to invent computers !
guard-of-terra 15y ago
There's also a Soviet unheralded hero: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Alexeyevich_Lebedev http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Alexeyevich_Lebedev He acted a bit later, but the same pattern: making his first computer in an estate using commodity hardware, then producing a quite few interesting machines some of which were the best in continental Europe at the time. Sadly, it seems that all european computers are essentially evolutionary dead ends - so nobody remembers them and their creators.
cygx 15y ago
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankalk%C3%BCl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankalk%C3%BCl and http://www.zib.de/zuse/Inhalt/Programme/Plankalkuel/Plankalkuel-Report/Plankalkuel-Report.htm http://www.zib.de/zuse/Inhalt/Programme/Plankalkuel/Plankalk... for information on Plankalkül, an imperative programming language by Zuse, which, however, never was implemented on his computers.
derda 15y ago
The article is kind of incomplete and concentrating more on the circumstances (nazis, war, ..) then his actual inventions. - He invented the first turing complete computer the Z3 which was finished in 1941, the Z4 (which was based on the Z3 was the first commercial computer) - He is also responsible for the first high level computing language - Planalkül The wikipedia article on him has some better information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse
- monopede 15y ago
  Small correction: "Plankalkül" which translates to "plan calculus"
- Retric 15y ago
  One of the more fascinating things about the history of computing is vacuum tubes where first commercially available in 1920 and several computing devices where so quickly built from them. When you look at how unstable early vacuum tubes actually where the gap where a computer was possible and when the first one was built was fairly small.
  - mjwalshe 15y ago
    they are quite reliable if you don't turn them off which is what colossus did
    - coldarchon 15y ago
      Their reliability was questionable because if one of the 17.000 tubes was broken, you never knew which one. You had to test all 17.000 ..
_delirium 15y ago
I'm not sure I'd call him "unheralded". When I saw that description, I thought, "huh, there's someone other than Zuse I should know about?", but then the article was about Zuse. I mean sure, he's not Turing- or Von-Neumann-level famous, but in both those cases their fame largely stems from their involvement in a number of other things as well (Turing's early AI writing and theoretical models of computing, and Von Neumann's role in the Manhattan Project and game theory). Zuse is pretty famous in comparison to the other computer-builders of the era, e.g. John Mauchly or John Vincent Atanasoff.
- ugh 15y ago
  He is also pretty well known in Germany. That (I guess you could call it local fame) seems about appropriate for what he did. He is no Turing, after all. The new computer science and automation building of my university in Germany (now the second largest building on the campus) was named after Zuse. I would say that’s quite the honor and recognition, especially considering the other buildings are named after Humboldt, Newton (mechanical engineering), Kirchhoff (electrical engineering), Helmholtz, Leibniz (library), Röntgen, Curie and Faraday.
  - billforsternz 15y ago
    A nice permanent exhibit in the engineering and technology museum in Berlin testifies to him being well known in Germany.
    - jeza 15y ago
      This was just a small part of that exhibit that I photographed in the Deutsches Technikmuseum: http://www.flickr.com/photos/87883903@N00/4279979012/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/87883903@N00/4279979012/
- bascule 15y ago
  I had exactly the same reaction. Is this article going to be about Konrad Zuse? Oh look, IT IS!
acqq 15y ago
Absolutely the best material on Konrad Zuse's inventions can be found in archive.org captures. It's written by his son Prof. Horst Zuse: http://web.archive.org/web/20040213064006/http://www.epemag.com/zuse/ http://web.archive.org/web/20040213064006/http://www.epemag....
- sb 15y ago
  Hi, thanks so much for linking this. I have always been a fan of the history of computing (e.g., Moshe Vardi mentioned Charles Peirce in a talk once http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce, and I have seen a reconstruction of one of Leibniz' calculators [http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Leibnitzrechenmaschine.jpg&filetimestamp=20060706122903] http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Leibnitzrech...), but I did not know that Konrad Zuse got a patent on the concept of pipelining in 1949. (AFAIR Hennesy and Pattern's "Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach" cites Tomasulo's algorithm from 1967)
beloch 15y ago
When I was in undergrad my university offered an unusual course: "The History of Computing". The prof wrote the text for the course, but it was actually a pretty good book, unlike many prof written texts. http://www.amazon.com/History-Computing-Technology-2nd-Edition/dp/0818677392/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332105922&sr=1-10 http://www.amazon.com/History-Computing-Technology-2nd-Editi... Zuse was given his due in this book (and the course). A recommended read if you're interested in the foundations of computing. It's oriented much more towards early computation devices than the PC era. If you want the story of Jobs, look elsewhere.
phreeza 15y ago
He is also sometimes credited with writing the first chess programm, in his own language, Plankalkül. cf http://www.zib.de/zuse/Inhalt/Programme/Plankalkuel/Chess/chess.htm http://www.zib.de/zuse/Inhalt/Programme/Plankalkuel/Chess/ch...
lwat 15y ago
I've always wanted to build a replica of the Z1 http://www.pcgameshardware.com/screenshots/original/2008/12/zusez1.jpg http://www.pcgameshardware.com/screenshots/original/2008/12/... It was a mechanical, binary computer. It ran at 1 Hz, had 1400 bits of memory, and it could add, subtract, multiply and divide. It even had a control unit which means it could run real computer programs. A 22 bit floating point multiply took 10 clock cycles. And all of that in a completely mechanical system!
thenextcorner 15y ago
I once made pictures in the Computer museum in Berlin of the Zuse first computers. http://thenextcorner.com/2008/01/zuse-computer-tentoonstelling/ http://thenextcorner.com/2008/01/zuse-computer-tentoonstelli... Sorry, site is in Dutch!
NonEUCitizen 15y ago
When Merkel gave a speech at Stanford mentioning Zuse invented the computer, she got laughed at. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/reporters-notebook-merkel-on-german-engineering-2010-04-16 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/reporters-notebook-merkel-o...
NonEUCitizen 15y ago
The Computer History Museum (Shoreline exit on Hwy 101) has one of his boards. It used electro-mechanical relays instead of vacuum tubes.
rmoriz 15y ago
If you plan to write a blog post about other German computer/electronics pioneers, why not pick Heinz Nixdorf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Nixdorf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Nixdorf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixdorf_Computer_AG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixdorf_Computer_AG http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqGZBUs7wP4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqGZBUs7wP4

80 points by edw519 15y ago

Konrad really is an unsung hero. Had he been able to publish his work and interact with others in the field I don't doubt we would all know his name.

excuse-me 15y ago
Although paradoxically, if circumstances had been such that he could - there wouldn't have been as much demand to invent computers !

guard-of-terra 15y ago

There's also a Soviet unheralded hero: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Alexeyevich_Lebedev http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Alexeyevich_Lebedev He acted a bit later, but the same pattern: making his first computer in an estate using commodity hardware, then producing a quite few interesting machines some of which were the best in continental Europe at the time. Sadly, it seems that all european computers are essentially evolutionary dead ends - so nobody remembers them and their creators.

cygx 15y ago

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankalk%C3%BCl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankalk%C3%BCl and http://www.zib.de/zuse/Inhalt/Programme/Plankalkuel/Plankalkuel-Report/Plankalkuel-Report.htm http://www.zib.de/zuse/Inhalt/Programme/Plankalkuel/Plankalk... for information on Plankalkül, an imperative programming language by Zuse, which, however, never was implemented on his computers.

derda 15y ago

The article is kind of incomplete and concentrating more on the circumstances (nazis, war, ..) then his actual inventions. - He invented the first turing complete computer the Z3 which was finished in 1941, the Z4 (which was based on the Z3 was the first commercial computer) - He is also responsible for the first high level computing language - Planalkül The wikipedia article on him has some better information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse

monopede 15y ago
Small correction: "Plankalkül" which translates to "plan calculus"
Retric 15y ago
One of the more fascinating things about the history of computing is vacuum tubes where first commercially available in 1920 and several computing devices where so quickly built from them. When you look at how unstable early vacuum tubes actually where the gap where a computer was possible and when the first one was built was fairly small.
- mjwalshe 15y ago
  they are quite reliable if you don't turn them off which is what colossus did
  - coldarchon 15y ago
    Their reliability was questionable because if one of the 17.000 tubes was broken, you never knew which one. You had to test all 17.000 ..

_delirium 15y ago

I'm not sure I'd call him "unheralded". When I saw that description, I thought, "huh, there's someone other than Zuse I should know about?", but then the article was about Zuse. I mean sure, he's not Turing- or Von-Neumann-level famous, but in both those cases their fame largely stems from their involvement in a number of other things as well (Turing's early AI writing and theoretical models of computing, and Von Neumann's role in the Manhattan Project and game theory). Zuse is pretty famous in comparison to the other computer-builders of the era, e.g. John Mauchly or John Vincent Atanasoff.

ugh 15y ago
He is also pretty well known in Germany. That (I guess you could call it local fame) seems about appropriate for what he did. He is no Turing, after all. The new computer science and automation building of my university in Germany (now the second largest building on the campus) was named after Zuse. I would say that’s quite the honor and recognition, especially considering the other buildings are named after Humboldt, Newton (mechanical engineering), Kirchhoff (electrical engineering), Helmholtz, Leibniz (library), Röntgen, Curie and Faraday.
- billforsternz 15y ago
  A nice permanent exhibit in the engineering and technology museum in Berlin testifies to him being well known in Germany.
  - jeza 15y ago
    This was just a small part of that exhibit that I photographed in the Deutsches Technikmuseum: http://www.flickr.com/photos/87883903@N00/4279979012/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/87883903@N00/4279979012/
bascule 15y ago
I had exactly the same reaction. Is this article going to be about Konrad Zuse? Oh look, IT IS!

acqq 15y ago

Absolutely the best material on Konrad Zuse's inventions can be found in archive.org captures. It's written by his son Prof. Horst Zuse: http://web.archive.org/web/20040213064006/http://www.epemag.com/zuse/ http://web.archive.org/web/20040213064006/http://www.epemag....

sb 15y ago
Hi, thanks so much for linking this. I have always been a fan of the history of computing (e.g., Moshe Vardi mentioned Charles Peirce in a talk once http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce, and I have seen a reconstruction of one of Leibniz' calculators [http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Leibnitzrechenmaschine.jpg&filetimestamp=20060706122903] http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Leibnitzrech...), but I did not know that Konrad Zuse got a patent on the concept of pipelining in 1949. (AFAIR Hennesy and Pattern's "Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach" cites Tomasulo's algorithm from 1967)

beloch 15y ago

When I was in undergrad my university offered an unusual course: "The History of Computing". The prof wrote the text for the course, but it was actually a pretty good book, unlike many prof written texts. http://www.amazon.com/History-Computing-Technology-2nd-Edition/dp/0818677392/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332105922&sr=1-10 http://www.amazon.com/History-Computing-Technology-2nd-Editi... Zuse was given his due in this book (and the course). A recommended read if you're interested in the foundations of computing. It's oriented much more towards early computation devices than the PC era. If you want the story of Jobs, look elsewhere.

phreeza 15y ago

He is also sometimes credited with writing the first chess programm, in his own language, Plankalkül. cf http://www.zib.de/zuse/Inhalt/Programme/Plankalkuel/Chess/chess.htm http://www.zib.de/zuse/Inhalt/Programme/Plankalkuel/Chess/ch...

lwat 15y ago

I've always wanted to build a replica of the Z1 http://www.pcgameshardware.com/screenshots/original/2008/12/zusez1.jpg http://www.pcgameshardware.com/screenshots/original/2008/12/... It was a mechanical, binary computer. It ran at 1 Hz, had 1400 bits of memory, and it could add, subtract, multiply and divide. It even had a control unit which means it could run real computer programs. A 22 bit floating point multiply took 10 clock cycles. And all of that in a completely mechanical system!

thenextcorner 15y ago

I once made pictures in the Computer museum in Berlin of the Zuse first computers. http://thenextcorner.com/2008/01/zuse-computer-tentoonstelling/ http://thenextcorner.com/2008/01/zuse-computer-tentoonstelli... Sorry, site is in Dutch!

NonEUCitizen 15y ago

When Merkel gave a speech at Stanford mentioning Zuse invented the computer, she got laughed at. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/reporters-notebook-merkel-on-german-engineering-2010-04-16 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/reporters-notebook-merkel-o...

NonEUCitizen 15y ago

The Computer History Museum (Shoreline exit on Hwy 101) has one of his boards. It used electro-mechanical relays instead of vacuum tubes.

rmoriz 15y ago

If you plan to write a blog post about other German computer/electronics pioneers, why not pick Heinz Nixdorf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Nixdorf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Nixdorf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixdorf_Computer_AG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixdorf_Computer_AG http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqGZBUs7wP4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqGZBUs7wP4