Konrad Zuse (1910 - 1995) was a German civil engineer, inventor and computer pioneer whose Z3 machine, completed in 1941, is widely regarded as the first programmable, fully automatic digital computer. [1] Working largely in isolation in Berlin, he also devised Plankalkül, considered one of the earliest high-level programming languages. [2]
Early life and education
Konrad Zuse was born on 22 June 1910 in Wilmersdorf, a district of Berlin. [1] He grew up in Braunsberg (then East Prussia) and Hoyerswerda, where a school and later a memorial site would come to bear his name. He studied at the Technische Universität Berlin, graduating in 1935 as a civil engineer.
The first computers
Frustrated by the repetitive calculations required in structural engineering, Zuse set out to automate them. In his parents' apartment he built the Z1 (completed around 1938), a mechanical calculating machine that already used binary numbers and a form of floating-point arithmetic. [1] Its successor, the electromechanical Z2, served as a proof of concept using telephone relays.
In 1941 Zuse completed the Z3, a relay-based machine that was programmable via punched tape and operated automatically. It is generally recognised as the first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer. [1] The original Z3 was destroyed in an Allied bombing raid during the Second World War; a functioning reconstruction was later built.
Plankalkül and later career
While the war interrupted his hardware work, Zuse turned to the theory of programming. Between roughly 1942 and 1945 he developed Plankalkül ("plan calculus"), a notation for expressing computations that is often described as one of the first high-level programming languages, though it was not implemented on a computer during his lifetime. [2]
After the war Zuse founded Zuse KG, one of the earliest computer companies, which produced commercial machines such as the Z4 and Z11 before being absorbed into Siemens. He also worked on the idea that the universe might be understood as a computational process, an early expression of what later became known as digital physics. [1]
Recognition and legacy
Zuse received numerous honours, including the Werner von Siemens Ring, the Harry H. Goode Memorial Award and the Great Cross with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, and he was named an honorary doctor of ETH Zurich. [3]
In his later years he devoted much time to painting. Konrad Zuse died on 18 December 1995 in Hünfeld, Germany. [1] He is remembered as one of the founding figures of computing, and the Konrad Zuse Medal, among Germany's most prestigious awards in computer science, is named in his honour.
