4 ms·

A very fascinating project, one I would never have the perseverance to see through. Thanks for posting it. It does, however, end with the machine being "not qu

A very fascinating project, one I would never have the perseverance to see through. Thanks for posting it. It does, however, end with the machine being "not quite finished" in 2011, can anyone find an update?

hazz 12y ago
The last update on the News page[0] is dated "June 13, 2011", so it seems not. A shame, it's such an interesting project. [0] http://www.nablaman.com/relay/progress.php http://www.nablaman.com/relay/progress.php
- kiiski 12y ago
  If you go to the downloads page[1], all the files have last modified date of 21-nov-2013. I don't know if that's due to actual changes, or something else. I tried sending him a message through the contact form. [1]: http://www.nablaman.com/relay/software/ http://www.nablaman.com/relay/software/
new299 12y ago
no, unfortunately I don't think he ever finished it. Though as he notes Zuse built complete relay computers in the early 1940s (using discarded telephone switching relays!). It's interesting that this development in computing has kind of been overlooked (I'd guess because it took place in 1940s Germany). I came across his work again as I was putting together a relay based oscillator this weekend [1]. I wonder if I have enough relays to put together a half adder. :) [1] http://41j.com/blog/2014/12/electromechanical-oscillator/ http://41j.com/blog/2014/12/electromechanical-oscillator/
- onli 12y ago
  To qualify the "overlooked" part: In Germany, his work is part of basic computing history every Computer Scientist should have at University. So his general work is far from forgotten.
  - _ak 12y ago
    Yep. In Germany. Pretty much nowhere else. The tragedy is that Zuse tried to patent a lot of his inventions. His submissions were lost during the war, and when he resubmitted them after the war, his applications were struck down due to American and British prior art.
    - _delirium 12y ago
      At least in the last 20 years or so, I think the Z3 is part of standard history-of-computing introductions in American CS curricula. We definitely learned about it when I was doing a CS degree in the early 2000s.
  - new299 12y ago
    That's really great to hear. Aside from this web page I'd unfortunately never heard of his work before. If you have any references I'd be interested in reading them. It's interesting that the wikipedia pages on the Manchester Baby, ENIAC, and Z3. All refer to them as "first computers" by one definition or another. I guess the ones you end up hearing about are to a degree culturally determined. I assumed something similar might have been developed in Japan. And it seems they also developed a relay based computer in 1952 which I found interesting: http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/en/computer/dawn/0005.html http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/en/computer/dawn/0005.html
    - onli 12y ago
      There is at least the Konrad Zuse Internet Archive, even partly in english: http://zuse.zib.de/ http://zuse.zib.de/. I have no own references apart from lecture slides I have no access to anymore. The thing with the first computer is similar with cars. France has a very different definition of what was the first car than germany - distinguishing between the first car and the first "modern" car - the same will probably be true for the USA and UK.
    - leoc 12y ago
      Well (according to Wiki, at least, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)#The_Z3_as_a_universal_Turing_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)#The_Z3_as_a_univ... ) the Z3 was only accidentally Turing-equivalent, and the hack for writing arbitrary programs on it was only discovered in 1998 (and wouldn't have been practically useful anyhow). The Manchester Baby was operational and ran its first program before the completion of the redesign and rebuild that made ENIAC Turing-equivalent. However, it had only been built as a technology demonstrator/testbed, and it was soon disassembled. (I say Turing-equivalent, but Turing's work wasn't the inspiration for any of these efforts to build a fully-programmable computer.)

hazz 12y ago

The last update on the News page[0] is dated "June 13, 2011", so it seems not. A shame, it's such an interesting project. [0] http://www.nablaman.com/relay/progress.php http://www.nablaman.com/relay/progress.php

kiiski 12y ago
If you go to the downloads page[1], all the files have last modified date of 21-nov-2013. I don't know if that's due to actual changes, or something else. I tried sending him a message through the contact form. [1]: http://www.nablaman.com/relay/software/ http://www.nablaman.com/relay/software/

new299 12y ago

no, unfortunately I don't think he ever finished it. Though as he notes Zuse built complete relay computers in the early 1940s (using discarded telephone switching relays!). It's interesting that this development in computing has kind of been overlooked (I'd guess because it took place in 1940s Germany). I came across his work again as I was putting together a relay based oscillator this weekend [1]. I wonder if I have enough relays to put together a half adder. :) [1] http://41j.com/blog/2014/12/electromechanical-oscillator/ http://41j.com/blog/2014/12/electromechanical-oscillator/

onli 12y ago
To qualify the "overlooked" part: In Germany, his work is part of basic computing history every Computer Scientist should have at University. So his general work is far from forgotten.
- _ak 12y ago
  Yep. In Germany. Pretty much nowhere else. The tragedy is that Zuse tried to patent a lot of his inventions. His submissions were lost during the war, and when he resubmitted them after the war, his applications were struck down due to American and British prior art.
  - _delirium 12y ago
    At least in the last 20 years or so, I think the Z3 is part of standard history-of-computing introductions in American CS curricula. We definitely learned about it when I was doing a CS degree in the early 2000s.
- new299 12y ago
  That's really great to hear. Aside from this web page I'd unfortunately never heard of his work before. If you have any references I'd be interested in reading them. It's interesting that the wikipedia pages on the Manchester Baby, ENIAC, and Z3. All refer to them as "first computers" by one definition or another. I guess the ones you end up hearing about are to a degree culturally determined. I assumed something similar might have been developed in Japan. And it seems they also developed a relay based computer in 1952 which I found interesting: http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/en/computer/dawn/0005.html http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/en/computer/dawn/0005.html
  - onli 12y ago
    There is at least the Konrad Zuse Internet Archive, even partly in english: http://zuse.zib.de/ http://zuse.zib.de/. I have no own references apart from lecture slides I have no access to anymore. The thing with the first computer is similar with cars. France has a very different definition of what was the first car than germany - distinguishing between the first car and the first "modern" car - the same will probably be true for the USA and UK.
  - leoc 12y ago
    Well (according to Wiki, at least, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)#The_Z3_as_a_universal_Turing_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)#The_Z3_as_a_univ... ) the Z3 was only accidentally Turing-equivalent, and the hack for writing arbitrary programs on it was only discovered in 1998 (and wouldn't have been practically useful anyhow). The Manchester Baby was operational and ran its first program before the completion of the redesign and rebuild that made ENIAC Turing-equivalent. However, it had only been built as a technology demonstrator/testbed, and it was soon disassembled. (I say Turing-equivalent, but Turing's work wasn't the inspiration for any of these efforts to build a fully-programmable computer.)