Zuse, Konrad

SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology

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b. 22 June 1910 Berlin, Germany

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German civil engineer who developed a series of computers before, during and after the Second World War.

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Zuse grew up in Braunsberg, then in East Prussia, and attended the Technische Hochschule at Berlin-Charlottenburg to study civil engineering. In 1934 he became interested in calculatingmachines and the pursuit of a career in aeronautical engineering. Two years later, having taken a post as a statistician, in his spare time he built a mechanical computer, which he called Z1; for this he used two-state mechanical switches and punched-tape for the program input. This was followed by the design for Z2, which used electromechanical relays.

Called to military service in 1939, he was soon sent to the Henschel aircraft factory, where he completed Z2. Between 1939 and 1941 the German Aeronautical Research Institute supported his development of Z3, which used 2,600 relays and a keyboard input. Taken into immediate use by the aircraft industry, both it and its predecessors were destroyed in air raids. Z4, completed towards the end of the war and using mechanical memory, survived, and with improvements was used in Switzerland until 1960. Other achievements by Zuse included a machine to perform logical calculations (LI) and his Plankalkul, one of the first computer languages. In 1950, with two friends, he formed the Zuse KG company near Bad Hersfeld, Essen, and his first Z5 relay computer was sold to Leitz in 1952. A series of machines followed, a milestone in 1958 being the first transistorized machine, Z22, of which over 200 were made. Finally, in 1969, the company was absorbed by Siemens AG and Zuse returned to scientific research.

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Principal Honours and Distinctions

Honorary Doctorate Berlin Technical University 1960. Honorary Professor Göttingen University 1960.

Bibliography

11 April 1936, German patent no. Z23 1391X/42M. 16 June 1941, German patent no. Z391.

1 August 1949, German patent no. 50,746.

1993, The Computer: My Life, Berlin: SpringerVerlag (autobiography).

Further Reading

P.E.Ceruzzi, 1981, "The early computers of Konrad Zuse 1935–45", Annals of the History of Computing 3:241.

M.R.Williams, 1985, A History of Computing Technology, London: Prentice-Hall.

See also: Stibitz, George R.

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