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Was Zuse's Z3 the First Programmable Computer?
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.]"
The ABC Computer at Iowa State University, by John Antasoff and Clifford Berry.
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.
Relays.
Incidentally, Aiken was the one who predicted that only six electronic digital computers would be required to satisfy the computing needs of the US.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
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.
Whether or not there is a stored program does not affect whether or not it is a programmable computer.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
> Furthermore, the ability to store and write a program, as I said above, has been fundamental to how computers have developed (i.e. the development of compilers).
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.
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.
And English/American bombers was exactly targetted at military or industrial sites? Germans dropped some first bombs to London accidentaly, English answered with massive bombings targetted to civilians. And English/American bombers dropped more bombs on Dresden than Germans on all England.
Have you ever been to London?
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.
By far more than survived
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 the number of victims becomes absolutly plausible.