Was Zuse's Z3 the First Programmable Computer? 450
Roland Piquepaille writes "Several years before the Colossus in the U.K. and the ENIAC in the U.S., the Z3, built by Konrad Zuse in 1941, was crunching numbers in Germany. In a short article, the Register reports on allegations that the Z3 was the first programmable computer. Based on a binary floating-point number and switching system, it had all the attributes of today's computers, such as a control block, a memory, and a calculator. But it didn't have the ability to store the program in the memory together with the data because the memory was too small. It had a 64-word memory of 22 bits each and was able to handle four additions per second and to do a multiplication in about five seconds. And it was pretty big: five meters long, two meters high, and 80 centimeters wide. It was destroyed during WWII, and later rebuilt in 1960/1961. You'll find more details, pictures and references in this analysis of this ancestor of modern computing. [Additional note: you can find other references to the Z3, Colossus and Eniac computers in this former Slashdot item, posted in October 2000.]"
Mechanical Computers (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mechanical Computers (Score:2)
I find that creating seasons with a pnuematic device to be the single most amazing feat ever! The amount of energy required to make summer is truly staggering.
Re:Mechanical Computers (Score:2)
Re:Mechanical Computers (Score:2)
Can't really believe that you are serious. Please provide some more explanation / some links in case I misunderstood you.
Re:Mechanical Computers (Score:3, Interesting)
But it's still ingenious in the extreme. The torque convertor isn't too complicated, but the dual planetary gearing system is freakin' incredible, once you grasp what it's doing and how. Whoever first
Re:Mechanical Computers (Score:4, Interesting)
computers used to be so much cooler looking (Score:2, Funny)
Old news? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Old news? (Score:2)
That explains Seven of Nine. Wait, isn't she German, too? Hmmm!
Damn.
Re:Old news? (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, this is old news. I have a general-interest computer book from 1971 that has a page or so on Zuse and his Z3.
So, the question is: what brought this up? Why did the Register feel the need to suddenly revisit this topic? Is it an anniversary or something? There's nothing in the article to indicate anything like that.
Re:Old news? (Score:3, Informative)
Because Collosus was recently rebuilt. this is often regarded as the first programmable computer. Since the Z3 preceded it, it seems this claim is untrue.
Re:Old news? (Score:2)
Not just any electronics (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Old news? (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess as a person interested in history I found it midly interesting. Then again as my father always said, "Show me what happened yesterday and I don't give a shit but show me what happens tomorrow and then I will be more than interested."
5.33 Hz? (Score:5, Funny)
math: 40-60 rpm, 8 cycles (16 magnets, alternating poles)/rev.
5.33 Hz? (Score:2)
And if properly prepared, at least two good meals.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:5.33 Hz? (Score:2)
hasn't that been outlawed yet?
high school science (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:high school science (Score:2)
Cool yes, but it'd be flawed as a project:
I guess you could come up with a science project if you changed it from building the machine to something like "had automated computational methods of the 1940's exceeded the capability of the human professional?"
Get some stats of human computational speed at the tim
Also claimed by... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Also claimed by... (Score:5, Informative)
A nice book talking about the early development of computing in the US (so no Z3 or Colossus, sorry) is ENIAC, by Scott McCartney. As the title implies, it's largely about the ENIAC, but ABC is given some treatment as well (particularly in contrast with the far more advanced ENIAC).
ENIAC is 100 years too late (Score:4, Interesting)
Selecting a "first" is extremely hard. If your definition is turing completeness then speech is turning complete so people probably win (although I'll leave turning completeness of animal brains to someone who knows more about the field 8)).
Personally I think that like a lot of other things in the universe there isn't a first because it evolved step by step.
Alan
So... (Score:2, Funny)
Not quite (Score:2)
Actually, SuSe should be coming out with a port next quarter.
This is not a computer.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is not a computer.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is not a computer.... (Score:2)
In order to
Re:This is not a computer.... (Score:2)
Re:This is not a computer.... (Score:2)
Re:This is not a computer.... (Score:2)
Re:This is not a computer.... (Score:5, Informative)
According to the article, the program was stored -- on punched film. It couldn't store the program in RAM so it would just read instructions from the film as it came time to execute them, but that doesn't make it any less a stored program.
Re:This is not a computer.... (Score:2, Interesting)
But when executable code is stored in memory it can be written too, enabling useful things like compilers...
I'm not sure I agree with the poster that this is a defining characteristic of a 'computer', but the von Neumann architecture was a fundamental step in modern computation.
Re:This is not a computer.... (Score:2)
Go back to cs 101
Re:This is not a computer.... (Score:3, Insightful)
A Turing machine isn't a stored program computer, the "program" is really the machine itself, and this is seen as the "canonical, mathematically correct" computer.
Re:This is not a computer.... (Score:4, Informative)
And as logn as you can punch holes in a strip of film, you can have your compiler and have it write a program.
It might be a real good idea however to realize that for a 64 word computer, you will be assembling the program by hand, possibly punching the holes by hand.
On a 1kbyte computer, it is still a lot more practical to go that way, compilers start becomming importsant a lot later, and while I agree they were an important step, they are definitely not a DEFINING step for what makes a computer.
Re:This is not a computer.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is not a computer.... (Score:5, Informative)
Whether or not there is a stored program does not affect whether or not it is a programmable computer.
Old Movie Film? (Score:5, Funny)
Please keep this fact quiet, lest the MPAA has will make inroards to claiming intellectual property rights to the entire modern computer industry
Does it really matter? (Score:3, Interesting)
Just say the Z3 was the first german, ENIAC was the first US, etc...
Who cares who was first... what really matters is what we do now and in the future.
Yes and no (Score:2, Insightful)
What'd be more interesting, however, would be to compare the ways these guys took to get there. Whether the function of the machine made any dif
Re:Does it really matter? (Score:3, Interesting)
What is true and not true now is merely the culmination of history up to this moment. If you can define history you define the present, and if you can define the present you can maintain a tight control over the future.
All human advancement is based on the past. If we lose a piece of history we may very well lose the piece that will inspire the invention of tommorow.
Think about that a bit.
Re:Does history really matter ? (Score:2)
You are right... the differences in the designs, and how they approached the situations and the innovations they used/developed are definately worth studying. But 'who wa
Why did it have a 5.33 Hertz clock? (Score:2)
So I repeat, why the heck did he go with such a slow clock speed?
One Word (Score:4, Informative)
Relays.
Re:Why did it have a 5.33 Hertz clock? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why did it have a 5.33 Hertz clock? (Score:3, Informative)
It did FLOATING POINT.
5.33 Hz was the speed of the first machine (Z1, 1941), which used less than 2000 mechanical relays, whereas ENIAC used 18,000 valve tubes.
So I repeat, not only was the Z1 mechanical because of lacking tube technology, it did FLOATING POINT .
Re:Why did it have a 5.33 Hertz clock? (Score:2)
Re:Why did it have a 5.33 Hertz clock? (Score:3, Interesting)
Stalag 13? (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder if this was smuggled out of Stalag 13 by Dunkirk and modified by the Allies to give us the ENIAC?? Boy, I'll bet General Burkhalter was pissed at Klink!
Hoooooooooooooooooogan!
What about ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What about ... (Score:2)
Re:What about ... (Score:2)
For instance, you probably write reports, listen to music, watch movies, perform complex calculations, browse the web, serve web pages, and email using the same computer. Imagine having a special purpose machine for each of those tasks... and for others as well. That's where Zuse's Z3 and the several computers that foll
Re:What about ... (Score:5, Interesting)
The babbage machines were architecturally similar to modern computers: he implemented ALU, CPU, memory banks, registers, central and secondary memory, etc. It seems quite clear to me (from reading academic papers on the topic, several years ago now) that Babbage's designs were the precursor to modern machines.
The problem is splitting the hairs:
- mechanical or electromechanical?
- generally programmable, or fixed programmble?
- architecturally modern, or not?
- stored program, or not?
and so on. This is obviously not a proper and complete list, but indicates the direction.
Yes, Finally! (Score:5, Interesting)
The crazy thing is that he developed all his ideas and machines isolated from the rest of the western world due to the Nazis. That to me is even more incredible. Give him a trophy.
Re:Yes, Finally! (Score:2)
The scientific communities virtually stopped communicating before and during the war. We're not talking about German scientists and American/English scientists who would have been fighting otherwise. I'm sure they would have wanted to collaborate with each other to further their knowledge, as they enjoy now.
But if you think a warring nation is going to let its scientists share technological advances with an enemy nation... you get real.
There was a contemporary programmable computer (Score:4, Informative)
Incidentally, Aiken was the one who predicted that only six electronic digital computers would be required to satisfy the computing needs of the US.
Re:There was a contemporary programmable computer (Score:2)
Considering the utterly pointless uses that computers are put to in modern life, I think I'd have to agree with Aiken.
Zuse's first design surfaced in 1936... (Score:5, Informative)
The next model, the Z2 was partly finished before Zuse got conscripted into the army, obviously they were oblivious as to the importance of his developments.
Incidentally, it's important to point out that although the Z3 had government money behind it, it was built and used by Zuse personally at home to solve problems with wing flutter for Heinkel where he worked. It was destroyed by chance when his home was hit in a bombing raid.
Zuse also developed the first multi-purpose computing language 'Plankalkul' too. Quite an impressive achievement for a mathematician who developed a computer simply to enable him to do his wing calculations more effectively.
Re:Zuse's first design surfaced in 1936... (Score:5, Interesting)
And he wrote a chess program in this language, before he actually had a machine to run it on.
I wonder (Score:2)
Re:I wonder (Score:2)
No, But A Nice Try (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry folks, but the first true computer was (and still is) the Manchester University Mark 1.
Ed Almos
Budapest, Hungary
*bzzt* Schernau's 3rd law strikes (Score:2)
Coffee table geek book... (Score:3, Interesting)
The Z machines and their inventor are also mentioned in a beautiful book, most suitable for geek coffee tables everywhere - "Computers: An Illustrated History" [amazon.co.uk] (direct Amazon UK link).
A suitable Father's day present if he's a geek too?
I'm not sure the Z3 was *really* the first..... (Score:5, Funny)
It seems to me that the Z2, or perhaps even the Z1 may have predated it.
The skeptic in me has to ask... (Score:2)
What other sources can reliably confirm that this device actually existed when he claims it did?
I mean, even if his notes date to that time, that doesn't prove that it was actually built back then. Babbage had a design for a computing machine long before that, but he couldn't actually build it because manufacturing technologies weren't that good yet.
So, again... what _INDEPENDANT_ source can verify that this guy is telling the truth about actually having it bui
Re:The skeptic in me has to ask... (Score:2)
But of course he could just be a fake and calculated the stuff in his head....
Oh please (Score:4, Funny)
wikipedia (Score:2)
Came on! (Score:2)
Get your facts about modern computers straight (Score:2)
Modern computers don't necessarily have the program memory in the same space as the data memory. Machines using the Von Neumann architechture, such as a PC have a shared memory space. The newer Harvard architechture has se
All the geeks in Germany seem to think so (Score:3, Informative)
I imagine that the very idea that there's a controversy is bewildering on both sides, since both Americans and Germans have been told all their lives that their side was first.
Re:All the geeks in Germany seem to think so (Score:3, Interesting)
Similar to how most of us learned about Columbus in elementary(to justify the holiday) and then later learned about the "native" americans coming across the land bridge from the west, an
How about this quote (Score:3, Funny)
Cool article, I have always been fascinated by very old computers and just how much work the could really do.
An overview of contenders to the crown. (Score:5, Informative)
The Z3 used mechanical relays instead. If I recall right, the Z3 could be Turing Complete with a little hack. In 1998, if I remember right, someone showed that conditional jumps could be implemented by quite literally forking the punched tape that was fed into it. So the Z3 was Turing complete, but wasn't quite designed to be. It was, however, quite programmable.
Collosus wasn't Turning Complete, but it was damn fast for what it did. It was programmable, and used valves like ENIAC later did.
Thus, the Z3 was the first Turing Complete (sort of) programmable computer ever made.
Collosus was the first fully electronic, programmable computer. It was also the first programmable computer used to break encryption.
ENIAC was the first computer designed to be Turing Complete.
Strongest contender to the title of the first "real" computer is, in my opinion, the Z3.
Zuse Also Posited Cellular Automata Physics Theory (Score:3, Informative)
Colossus (Score:3, Informative)
The first being that it was somewhat, but not completely programmable. It was well suited for cracking german ciphers, and could be modified to account for changes in the encryption schemes.
The second was that it was fast. Very fast. Granted, it suffered from a von neumann bottleneck. The computers typically operated at 1,000 charatcters per second. One of the designers tested the limits of the machine and found that it could reliably work up to 8,000 characters per second before the paper tape would catch fire from the friction. This sort of speed went unsurpassed for decades -- perhaps even into the 80s.
Thirdly, it was small. Tiny compared to ENIAC. All 10 fit into one (albeit, rather large) room.
Last, it had almost no influence upon later computers. After the war, Churchill ordered the cryptologists to cut the machine into "pieces no bigger than a man's head". However, as all government secrets go, it wasn't held quite well, and someone successfully built [codesandciphers.org.uk]their own colossus.
Z3 and Turing completeness (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting and signifcant though they were, neither the Colossus, or Harvard Mark I had this ability. The Z3, as it turned out, did - though this was only proved in 1998, and was a "theoretical" proof - you could use the Z3 as a universal computer, but it wasn't really practical to use it in that way.
The ENIAC, however, ugly hack that it was, was designed and used as a Turing-complete computer.
The first computer with a stored-program architecture of the kind virtually all computers use today was the Manchester Baby, based on the EDVAC (?) design if I recall correctly.
Re:It was called... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Who knows what would have happened (Score:5, Interesting)
(1) Let the generals run the combat. AFAIK there were several opportunities to either retreat and regroup or to give up ground to assist other units that could have actually won the Eastern Front.
(2) Made the Final Solution a post-war ambition. There were a lot of resources wasted on the Death Camps and other essentially political/sociological obsessions. Not only did this limit Nazi Germany's resources, but it limited their access to a large segment of educated people.
There's probably a mildly entertaining alt-history story about a Nazi government that decides to pursue its racial ambitions after it conquers Russia and England and so succeeds due to the reallocation of resources.
Re:Who knows what would have happened (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who knows what would have happened (Score:3, Interesting)
He, he, I wasn't going to say that. I was going to say though that it had a lot in common with the communist block in that respect. The Soviets refrained from taking on the rest of the world in all out war, so their system lasted just a tad longer. But it also never reached self-sustaining critical mass, and it eventually imploded. That has to be said with all the credit being heaped upon the Big Gipper at the moment for having "won" the Cold War.
Re:Who knows what would have happened (Score:2)
Yes, i used to think so, too. But there are two things to notice:
a) By confiscating jewing poperty they could help finance their war preperation. Just seizing random assets/corporations would have aggravated the military industry, but with the jews they didnt care...
b) Most people werent killed at once. They had to do slave labour till they were nearly dead, and were gassed then.
Even high-tech stuff like the V1s were assembled by prisoners from concentration camps.
Re:Who knows what would have happened (Score:2)
Re:Who knows what would have happened (Score:2)
I am sure Hitler cooked everyone when he did, just so he could get as many done as he could. Let's be realistic here... I doubt Hitler expected to even get as far as he did... he WANTED to, but cmon... Germany... the rest of the world... no matter how full of yourself you are, "Trying to take over the world" is not a goal I think anyone feels they can accomplish.
Not reasonable. (Score:2)
MODERATERS DO YOU HAVE NO SENSE (Score:3, Informative)
It makes the German WW2 efforts almost sound nobel for not "resorting to massive targetting of civilian population centers". So why exactly did my country shoot and V2 and V1 towards London?
The only reason that Germany did not use poison gas was because of the paranoia over this weapon that Hitler developed when serving in WW1. I am quite certain he would have embraced nukes with glee if somebody would have given them to him.
And what is this BS about most
Re:Wer Deutschland Liebt? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes. And an aunt of mine lived their during the war. While the actual destruction was not at all as devastating as what Germany had to endure, it was certainly not for lack of trying. My aunt gave a very gripping account of the terror that the V2 evoked. It was a death that you did not see coming since it was the 1st supersonic weapon ever. She told us "if you heard it you knew you were al right this time. But it made you feel vulnerable all the time because you weren't save anywhere in London, and there was nothing anybody could do against it." It was perfect state terrorism.
Perhaps, but given how much advanced gas was produced, like sarin, you would think a reasonable person, upon hearing of the attrocities committed by the Russian army as they advanced through East Prussia would make you give up that resolve.
Ever cared to read an objective biography on Hitler?
Hundreds of thousands left, even according to Jewish sources.
And millions have been killed in the holochost [us-israel.org].
By far more than survived [globalfire.tv]
A grand-aunt of mine was married to a Jewish German. His name was Wilhelm - as German a name as you can get at the time. They were both chemist and managed to get away to the US before it was to late, but all of Wilhelm's family perished in the Holocaust. His sister and her husband made it to France just to be arrested the night before trying to make their final get-away by boat. I always admired him for being able to come to Germany without hate.
So, what were all those Jews doing from the time Hitler was elected in 1933 until the holocaust supposedly happened in 1943?
If you would care to educate yourself on the issue you would know that the discrimination against Jewish Germans started very gradually. First the synagogues burned, than they had to wear stars, then they were held in ghettos and then gradually they vanished out of sight. The Nazis were very careful in not advertising what happened to the people in concentration camp. They were "just" supposed to be forced to work, and many in fact were exploited that way. It has been reported that even many inmates of the concentration camps thought it was inconceivable that Germany even as badly tainted by Nazism as it was would simply kill its own citizen. A lot of effort was spend on entertaining this illusion. Making the gas chambers in the camps look as inconspicuous as possible (sometimes a shower head was just a device to release water but sometimes it would release something far more lethal).
You can go to Auschwitz and take a look for yourself at the streamlined manufactory of death. Efficient as a state of the art slaughterhouse. If you compare for instance with how many cattle is slaughtered per year in the US [usda.gov] the number of victims becomes absolutly plausible.
Re:Wer Deutschland Liebt? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Certainly you don't know what DID happen (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Certainly you don't know what DID happen (Score:3, Informative)
The "accident" to which you refer, a flight of Luftwaffe bombers dropping their load on London having strayed off course during the Battle of Britain is true, of course. But the Blitz that followed, as well as the V-Weapons (V-1, V-2), were far from accidental.
And while the USAAF and RAF embraced the aerial part of "Total War", it was Germany that
Re:Who knows what would have happened (Score:3, Insightful)
Nazi Germany's successes and failures were both a result of his thinking.
Of course, the enthusiasm for the Nazis among the upper classes of Britain and the US didn't help - the failure to support the Republicans in Spain, ignoring Mussolini's offer to turn on Hitler around the tim
Re:Who knows what would have happened (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Units Please? (Score:2)
196.85 in x 78.74 in x 31.49 in or
5.468 yd x 2.18 yd x
5m x 2 m x 8 m
I personally usually think of a yard = meter, unless I REALLY need more precise figures.
Re:Oh here we go.... (Score:2)
Re:LOL 5.33 Hz clock generator (Score:2)
Re:Too bad (Score:2)
Re:Floating Point? (Score:2)
Even more simple answer: WTF? How can anyone REALLY think a concept as simple as floating point numbers could have evaded generations of mathematicans until some calculator company invents it....
Re:A good overview? (Score:3, Informative)
We're talking switchboards and blinken lights, methinks. Of course, I believe the Collossus [wikipedia.org]/ENIAC [wikipedia.org] et al. had typewriters hacked in somehow, judging by the pictures.
With any of the first computers, I think a "command console" whilst not impossible, would take up almost all of your memory and make it useless for actual work.
I'm under the impression that in those days, the only person using a program also usually happend to be the one who WROTE the program, so they know which