5 ms·
In Berlin, the son of Konrad Zuse is recreating the Z3 using modern relays. https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Z3_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Z3_(co
by pepijndevos 11y ago
In Berlin, the son of Konrad Zuse is recreating the Z3 using modern relays. https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Z3_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Z3_(computer)
You can visit it in the museum. Forgot the name, has a plane on the roof.
He gave a talk when I was there, and afterwards, we where allowed to add some numbers on the computer. You can see the memory banks and hear the relais clicking and blinking.
An interesting fact is that it is a 32 bit floating point machine. Though when I was there he had some issues with synchronising the clocks, so it only did integers then.
- waterlesscloud 11y agoOne of my college profs worked with Zuse. In class I said, "Wait, so you worked for the..." and then stopped realizing what I was about to say. He was Hungarian-American, and at the time very old. What I was going to say wasn't fair. On the other hand, the class he was teaching was my assembly language class. And he knew the material inside and out.
- M8 11y agoWas he helping with NASA as well? http://www.globalresearch.ca/operation-nazification-u-s-military-hired-sixteen-hundred-nazi-scientists-and-doctors/5369981 http://www.globalresearch.ca/operation-nazification-u-s-mili...
- waterlesscloud 11y agoLockheed, actually. :-)
- david-given 11y agoHe probably would have had some fascinating, if very uncomfortable, stories, if he was willing to tell them... which he probably wasn't. Somehow that makes me very sad.
- skrebbel 11y agoI'm not sure I understand what you were going to say. I was assuming "Wait, so you worked for the inventor of the computer?", but then you went on about race and I didn't get it anymore.
- to3m 11y agoHe was probably wondering whether the guy worked for the Nazis.
- waterlesscloud 11y agoYes. And realizing mid-sentence that he would have been a very young Hungarian at the time and it would have been a complicated and probably not fair to him question.
- JshWright 11y agoThat's not really a question. He absolutely did work for the Nazis. The OP's point was that there wouldn't be much value in simply pointing that out (it's not like it would be news to Prof. Zuse).
- chiph 11y agoWhat he was about to point out that while it is known that Zuse worked for the Nazis, by association his professor also did. Awkward.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- quesera 11y agoQuoth Wikipedia: > While Zuse never became a member of the Nazi Party, he is not known to have expressed any doubts or qualms about working for the Nazi war effort. Much later, he suggested that in modern times, the best scientists and engineers usually have to choose between either doing their work for more or less questionable business and military interests in a Faustian bargain, or not pursuing their line of work at all.[28] Which seems true enough to me.
- rorykoehler 11y agoCan you or anyone recommend a good documentary on Konrad Zuse please? I have searched and there doesn't seem to be any obvious candidates.
- troymc 11y agoYes, that would be the Deutsches Technikmuseum: the German Museum of Technology. http://www.sdtb.de/Englisch.55.0.html http://www.sdtb.de/Englisch.55.0.html A word of warning: you could easily spend days exploring that museum. Fortunately, the computers are close to the entrance, so you probably won't make the mistake of discovering them at the last minute.