Computer pioneer, born in Berlin, Germany. He studied at the Berlin Institute of Technology before joining the Henschel Aircraft Co in 1935. In the following year he began building a calculating machine in his spare time, a task which occupied him until 1945. He built a number of prototypes, the most historic of which was the Z3, the first operational general-purpose program-controlled calculator. Until 1964 he built up his own firm Zuse KG, and became an honorary professor of Göttingen University in 1966.
Konrad Zuse (June 22, 1910 – December 18, 1995) was a German engineer and computer pioneer.
The Z3 is claimed to be the "first computer" as such, though this depends on complex and subtle definitional issues, as the machine was not truly general-purpose in the manner of later machines (see the article of history of computing for a thorough discussion). Zuse also designed the first high-level programming language, the Plankalkül, first published in 1948, although this was a theoretical contribution, since the language was never actually implemented within his lifetime and did not directly influence early implemented languages.
In addition to his technical work, Zuse founded the first computer startup company in 1946. Due to the circumstances of World War II, however, Zuse's work initially went largely unnoticed in the UK and the US; In the late 1960s, Zuse suggested the concept of a Calculating Space (a computation-based universe).
The Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin in Berlin devotes a special exhibition to Konrad Zuse and his works. Shown are twelve of his machines, including the replicated Z1, original documents, including the Plankalkül, and several of Zuse's paintings.
Pre-WWII work and the Z1
Born in Berlin, Germany, Zuse graduated in civil engineering from the Technische Hochschule Berlin-Charlottenburg (today the Technische Universität Berlin or Technical University of Berlin) in 1935. During his engineering studies, Zuse had to perform many routine calculations by hand, which he found mind-numbingly boring.
He started work as a design engineer at the Henschel aircraft factory in Dessau, but only one year later he resigned from his job to build a program driven/programmable machine. the Z2, Z3, and Z4
World War II made it impossible and undesirable for Zuse and contemporary German computer scientists to work with similar scientists in the UK and the USA, or even to stay in contact. In 1939, Zuse was called for military service but was able to convince the army to let him return to building his computers. Zuse built the Z2, a revised version of his machine, from telephone relays. The same year, he started a company, Zuse Apparatebau (Zuse Apparatus Engineering), to manufacture his programmable machines.
Satisfied with the function of the basic Z2 machine, he built the Z3 and completed it in 1941. However, its Turing-completeness was never envisioned by Zuse (who had practical applications in mind) and only proven in 1998 (see History of computing hardware).
Zuse never received the official support that computer pioneers in Allied countries, such as Alan Turing, managed to get.
Zuse's company, together with the Z3, was destroyed in 1945 by an Allied attack. Zuse designed the first high-level programming language, Plankalkül, from 1941 to 1945, although he did not publish it in its entirety until 1972. No compiler or interpreter was available for Plankalkül until a team from the Free University of Berlin implemented it in 2000, five years after Zuse died.
Zuse the entrepreneur
In 1946 Zuse founded the world's first computer startup company: the Zuse-Ingenieurbüro Hopferau. Venture capital was raised through ETH Zürich and an IBM option on Zuse's patents.
Zuse founded another company, Zuse KG, in 1949. Other computers, all numbered with a leading Z, were built by Zuse and his company. Z1 resurrection
In 1967 Zuse also suggested that the universe itself is running on a grid of computers (digital physics); Since the publication of Stephen Wolfram's book A New Kind of Science, this idea has attracted a lot of attention, since there is no compelling physical evidence against Zuse's thesis. Critics of Wolfram's work claim that the fundamental ideas are essentially due to Zuse.
Between 1987 and 1989, Zuse recreated the Z1, suffering a heart-attack midway through the project. The final result had 30,000 components, cost 800,000 DM, and required four individuals (including Zuse) to assemble it.
Zuse received several awards for his work. Zuse died on December 18, 1995 in Hünfeld, Germany, near Fulda.
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