The long lost manual for the Zuse Z4 has been found

Thanks! That submission didn't get as high on the front page as this one already has, and didn't get as much discussion as maybe it could, so I think we'll leave the current one up rather than marking it a dupe. I've de-baited the title though.

Re: The long lost manual for the Zuse Z4 has been found

#8

Post by zurfer » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 7:26 AM UTC

it's ironic that we have such a hard time preserving information of a technology that runs the world today, a technology that is called "information technology"

Re: The long lost manual for the Zuse Z4 has been found

#9

Post by brodo » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 7:27 AM UTC

Deutsches Museum has a great collection of computers, including a Cray 1 and an original Apple 1 kit donated by Steve Jobs. However, most of the exhibitions in Deutsches Musem - including the computer science one - seem to be stuck in the 90's.

Re: The long lost manual for the Zuse Z4 has been found

#10

Post by akie » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 7:36 AM UTC

There's a very lively startup scene in Berlin, but no-one in that scene seems to know that the world's first digital computer was built in Berlin.

There's an obscure and easy to miss sign (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse#/media/File:2007-0...) on the house he lived in while working on it, and another sign at the technical university, but that's about it. No big festivities in his name, no commemorations, nothing.

Just imagine if the first digital computer was built somewhere in the US or in the UK. I'm sure we'd hear about until the end of times. Strange how that works.