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Konrad Zuse and the digital revolution he started 75 years ago

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Re: Konrad Zuse and the digital revolution he started 75 years ago

#4

Post by mh-cx »

pieter1976 wrote: post #2

Good to see Zuse on HN. It's possible to go and see his machines in Germany and I highly recommend it. This is a "forgotten" part of computing history because of WWII and deserves the light of day.

Agree. The Z3 is exhibited at the Deutsches Museum in Munich:

http://www.deutsches-museum.de/en/exhibitions/communication/...

Here's the Z3 in action (German only, try subtitles):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUXnhVrT4CI

Re: Konrad Zuse and the digital revolution he started 75 years ago

#7

Post by mh-cx »

tiatia wrote: post #3

Konrad Who?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse

Most remarkable:

> Zuse completed his work entirely independently of other leading computer scientists and mathematicians of his day. Between 1936 and 1945, he was in near-total intellectual isolation.

Re: Konrad Zuse and the digital revolution he started 75 years ago

#8

Post by jacquesm »

kuschku wrote: post #5
tiatia wrote: post #3

Konrad Who?

The person who invented the computer. Which somehow no US school teaches about. He also developed a very awesome high-level language very early on.

Charles Babbage is as far as I know the uncontested inventor of the computer, which somehow even German schools teach about.

Re: Konrad Zuse and the digital revolution he started 75 years ago

#9

Post by elcapitan »

pieter1976 wrote: post #2

Good to see Zuse on HN. It's possible to go and see his machines in Germany and I highly recommend it. This is a "forgotten" part of computing history because of WWII and deserves the light of day.

One funny detail I read about those machines is that he had to steal (due to war shortages) copper cables from public telephone lines, which could have lead to death penalty (because of sabotage).

Re: Konrad Zuse and the digital revolution he started 75 years ago

#10

Post by mh-cx »

jacquesm wrote: post #8
kuschku wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person who invented the computer. Which somehow no US school teaches about. He also developed a very awesome high-level language very early on.

Charles Babbage is as far as I know the uncontested inventor of the computer, which somehow even German schools teach about.

Was it Turing complete? Because Zuse's Z3 was.

I'm not saying though, that this is a criteria for calling any machine a computer. But it's probably what sets Zuse's achievement apart.

UPDATE: I've just learned that Babbage's language was also Turing complete. So Zuse's achievement is solely having physically built the first working computer, while Babbage's machine was never realized.

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