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Technology Hardware

Was Zuse's Z3 the First Programmable Computer? 450

Posted by simoniker from the slashdot-readers-tell-us dept.
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.]"
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Was Zuse's Z3 the First Programmable Computer? More

Was Zuse's Z3 the First Programmable Computer?

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  • Mechanical Computers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by $calar ( 590356 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:10PM (#9359388) Journal
    I find mechanical computers very interesting. I was browsing the web a few days ago and some guy built a differentiator, integrator, and summer based on some pneumatic system. Very cool.
    • I find mechanical computers very interesting. I was browsing the web a few days ago and some guy built a differentiator, integrator, and summer based on some pneumatic system. Very cool.

      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.

    • If you like that, you'll love automatic transmissions. They're so funky that no one really understood how and why they worked until relatively recently, except the man who invented them.
      • What? Automatic transmissions, like those used in cars??
        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)

          by Otto ( 17870 )
          Yeah, he can't be correct. The automatic transmission has undergone continual design changes and improvements over the last 100 years or so. It wasn't really viable for car use until 1940 or so, but since then it's been changed and messed with quite a lot. Hard to do that if you don't understand how it works.

          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)

          by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Monday June 07, 2004 @04:47PM (#9360327) Homepage Journal
          Automatic transmissions, like those used in cars, use a fluidic computer consisting of one or more metal plates with passages cut in them. Transmission fluid is the working material which flows through the plates and determines (based on an assortment of factors) what happens inside of the transmission. It's not the only fluidic computer around but there it is. (I'm not sure if it really saves state, except for putting the thing in multiple different gears.)
  • But that one couldn't even play Frogger! Useless!

  • Old news? (Score:5, Funny)

    by FyRE666 ( 263011 ) * on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:11PM (#9359400) Homepage
    I'm not all that surprised by this, after all as every schoolboy who's played "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" knows, Hitler's merry men came up with staggering advances in technology: Robotics, tesler weaponry, zombies and nubile female assassins in skin-tight leather catsuits. It's amazing that a single American soldier made out of pixels managed to single-handedly wipe out the entire German army really. I wouldn't have known about all of this without access to that game; it seems as though someone has managed to conceal these details about agent Blazkowitz's amazing adventures behind enemy lines until now. I certainly cannot find any mention of it in the library, and the old man in my local pub who's always telling us "youngans" about his own endevours seems very tight lipped/violent when the subject is raised...
    • > nubile female assassins in skin-tight leather catsuits

      That explains Seven of Nine. Wait, isn't she German, too? Hmmm!

      Damn.

    • Re:Old news? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by OECD ( 639690 )

      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)

        by 91degrees ( 207121 )
        So, the question is: what brought this up? Why did the Register feel the need to suddenly revisit this topic?

        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.
        • Collosus is often regarded as the first programmable electronic computer. The Z series computers were all mechanical, so it seems the claim is still true.

      • Re:Old news? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by garcia ( 6573 ) *
        I wasn't around during the Nazi rule in Germany. I wasn't around in 1971 when that general-interest computer book came out. I don't have any recollection of any at-length discussions of the Z3.

        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)

    by morcheeba ( 260908 ) * on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:11PM (#9359401) Journal
    I'm sure it's just a total coincidence, but hamsters can provide 5.33 - 8 Hz [otherpower.com].

    math: 40-60 rpm, 8 cycles (16 magnets, alternating poles)/rev.

  • high school science (Score:3, Interesting)

    by millahtime ( 710421 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:12PM (#9359409) Homepage Journal
    Building something like this could be a really cool high school science project.

    • Cool yes, but it'd be flawed as a project:

      1. The teachers would not understand it
      2. It doesn't explore a phenomenon or principle using a scientific method (i.e. it's an engineering problem)
      3. Teachers will think you didn't come up with the idea

      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)

    by LV-427 ( 315309 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:14PM (#9359423)
    The ABC Computer [iastate.edu] at Iowa State University, by John Antasoff and Clifford Berry.

    • Re:Also claimed by... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tar-Palantir ( 590548 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:25PM (#9359537)
      The ABC was not really programmable (it lacked control structures), it was more of an automatic calculator than a computer. It was also slow, error-prone, and had a ridiculous output system involving burning (!) holes in paper cards.

      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)

        by Alan Cox ( 27532 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @06:45PM (#9361265) Homepage
        The first recorded programmable computer systems I am aware of that had control structures (loop count) were loom machines which while never used von-neumann style (humans punched the instructions the machine didnt weave new tapes) had the basics we consider today although very ad-hoc since they were built for real work rather than by computability theorists.

        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)

    by MrRuslan ( 767128 )
    When will they port Net BSD to it?

  • This is not a computer.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by WARM3CH ( 662028 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:16PM (#9359444)
    without a stored program, it is called a calculator, not a computer brother.

  • Old Movie Film? (Score:5, Funny)

    by buckhead_buddy ( 186384 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:17PM (#9359455)
    The article (and references) note that Zuse's computers stored their programs on old movie film because paper was in short supply.

    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)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:19PM (#9359479) Homepage Journal
    Which was the first computer? Does it really matter? I mean, honestly, why bicker about minor points in history?

    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)

      by daniil ( 775990 )
      Well, it probably matters a lot for someone to point their finger at the Z3 and say: "See, they did it first, you lost." Something to do with patriotism or national pride, i don't know. But it's really not of much interest. It's just as pointless as arguing over who really invented the telephone, Bell or the other guy who was half an hour late to the patent office.

      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

    • Perhaps you should read 1984 before you determine that history doesn't matter.

      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.
  • What, was alternating current in Germany REALLY SLOW?!?!? Hmm, if it could do 4 22-bit ops at 5.33 Hz, just replacing the clock with standard US 60Hz current would have given it a blinding (well, in comparison) 45 (rounded down) 22-bit ops.

    So I repeat, why the heck did he go with such a slow clock speed?

  • Stalag 13? (Score:5, Funny)

    by maxbang ( 598632 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:21PM (#9359492) Journal

    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)

    by gustgr ( 695173 ) <(gustgr) (at) (gmail.com)> on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:21PM (#9359495)
    Babbage's Analytical Engine [fourmilab.to] (which first computer programmer was Ada Byron, daughter of Lord Byron).
    • Babbage's analytical engine takes the prize for first automatic calculating machine, however because there was no way of programming it and storing that program it does not take the prize for first computer.
    • Babbage's engine was remarkable for its time, no doubt. But the big difference between that and what would now be considered modern day computers is the concept of the Universal Machine.

      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)

        by curator_thew ( 778098 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:46PM (#9359770)

        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)

    by Doesn't_Comment_Code ( 692510 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:23PM (#9359512)
    I DO happen to think that Zuse should get credit for the first computer. I remember hearing all that historical stuff about who made the first computer. But then I read what Zuse had accomplished and when he did it. His concepts were way ahead of everyone else. He basically invented the programmable computer. No, its not just like the architecture of our computers today, but he certainly laid the foundation - or would have had his research been shared.

    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.

  • There was a contemporary programmable computer (Score:4, Informative)

    by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:26PM (#9359553) Homepage Journal
    Howard Aiken's Harvard Mark I (the IBM ASCC) which was supposedly developed between 1939 and 1944 [maxmon.com]. This machine was programmable too, and is frequently considered the first "digital" computer.

    Incidentally, Aiken was the one who predicted that only six electronic digital computers would be required to satisfy the computing needs of the US.

  • Zuse's first design surfaced in 1936... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Aphrika ( 756248 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:28PM (#9359570)
    Or at least the plans for the Z1 did. IIRC he tried to get it built, but the engineers thought he was a conman. He eventually got it completed in 1938.

    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.
  • What Turing thought of the Z3. I though - and please correct me if I'm wrong here - that a computer in the Turing sense required a kind of memory in which to store the instructions that are to be used on the arbitrary dataset. The point being that the instructions in the program determine the actions of the machine so it is not limited to a single trick, such as an abacus. So, if a calculating machine is instructed through punch cards and is restricted to the operations that are made possible by its hardwar
    • The theory of how the data is stored is important, the actual method is not. For instance, there is no theoretical difference between reading/writing ram, and scanning/punching cards. You can perform the same operations (assuming you can feed the newly punched cards to the card reader). That is why computer theory didn't have to be reconstructed with the invention of the transistor. The more-or-less swapped out all the relay switches with transistor switches - the actual method didn't matter as long as

  • No, But A Nice Try (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ed Almos ( 584864 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:30PM (#9359597)
    Given that the machine could not store its program as well as the data I would say no, but it's a nice try for the number one spot. The German machine is also IMHO a better machine than ENIAC as ENIAC had to be reprogrammed by almost completely rebuilding the machine.

    Sorry folks, but the first true computer was (and still is) the Manchester University Mark 1.

    Ed Almos
    Budapest, Hungary

  • Coffee table geek book... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by delibes ( 303485 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:34PM (#9359638)
    Off-topic but...

    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?


  • It seems to me that the Z2, or perhaps even the Z1 may have predated it.
  • He says it was destroyed during the war.

    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

  • Oh please (Score:4, Funny)

    by emf ( 68407 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:51PM (#9359821)
    We all know Al Gore invented the 1st computer.

  • see Zuse article on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].
  • People, I'm disgusted with the little knowledge of history slashdotters show. Every one here should know that the first computer was created by Spock with silver forks when he and Captain Kirk traveled to the past and the tricorder failed. Is this news for nerds or what?
  • 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.

    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)

    by Get Behind the Mule ( 61986 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @04:03PM (#9359944)
    I grew up in the US and have lived in Germany for nearly twenty years, and this is a story that has always amused me. It's a bit like the Americans and Soviets both insisting that they invented airplanes. In America I had always heard that ENIAC was the first computer, but almost as soon as I got here, I learned that the Germans simply take it for granted that Konrad Zuse invented the computer. Well, the geeks all do, or so it seems (your average German on the street probably has no clue, although quite a few of them have heard the story as well).

    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.
    • To give a bit of credit to America. I do believe I had been told that ENIAC was the first in my 7th grade computer class, but I was disabused of that notion by being taught of Zuse and shown the whole timeline and nuances in one of the introductory computer classes at a public university(Florida International University).

      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)

    by Nonillion ( 266505 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @04:30PM (#9360174)
    "5.33 Hz ought to be a fast enough clock speed for anybody"

    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)

    by arevos ( 659374 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @04:38PM (#9360238) Homepage
    First let's start with ENIAC. ENIAC used valves, was electronic, was Turing Complete, and was designed to be Turing Complete. Which means that it could, theoretically, solve any problem currently solvable by today's machines (given enough time). Because it was Turing complete, it was obviously programmable.

    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.

  • Colossus (Score:3, Informative)

    by moosesocks ( 264553 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @05:24PM (#9360671) Homepage
    The colossus is interesting in a few respects.

    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)

    by Goonie ( 8651 ) * <robert,merkel&benambra,org> on Monday June 07, 2004 @06:29PM (#9361158) Homepage
    To talk about the "first computer" requires a definition of what makes a modern computer different from an abacus. One of the most relevant is Turing-completeness; the ability to simulate a Universal Turing machine. There's a well-known conjecture (it's not a theorem, you can't prove it, only disprove it) in theoretical computer science called the Church-Turing thesis that says anything you can compute, you can compute with a Turing machine. So if your computing architecture can simulate a UTM, you have a universal computing device.

    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.

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