First programmable computer The Z1 was created by German Konrad Zuse
in his parents' living room between 1936 and 1938. The computer performed its
first calculation on May 6, 1949, and was the computer that ran the first
graphical computer game, nicknamed "Baby". Around the same time, the
Manchester Mark 1 was another computer that could run stored programs.
Z1
was a machine of about 1000 kg weight, which consisted of some 20000 parts. It
was a programmable computer, based on binary floating-point numbers and a
binary switching system. It consisted completely of thin metal sheets, which
Zuse and his friends produced using a jigsaw. The [data] input device was a
keyboard. The Z1’s programs (Zuse called them Rechenpläne) were stored on punch
tapes by means of an 8-bit code.
Construction of
the Z1 was privately financed. Zuse got money from his parents, his sister
Lieselotte, some students of the fraternity AV Motive (cf. Helmut Scheryer ) and Kurt Pannke
(a calculating machine manufacturer in Berlin) to do so.
Zuse
constructed the Z1 in his parent's apartment; in fact, he was allowed to use
the living room for his construction. In 1936, Zuse quit his job in airplane
construction in order to build the Z1.
Zuse
is said to have used "thin metal strips" and perhaps "metal
cylinders" or glass plates to construct Z1. There were probably no
commercial relays in it (though the Z3 is said to have used a few telephone
relays). The only electrical unit was an electric motor to give the clock frequency of 1 HZ (cycle per
second) to the machine.
'The
memory was constructed from thin strips of slotted metal and small pins, and
proved faster, smaller, and more reliable, than relays. The Z2 used the
mechanical memory of the Z1, but used relay-based arithmetic. The Z3 was
experimentally built entirely of relays. The Z4 was the first attempt at a
commercial computer, reverting to the faster and more economical mechanical slotted
metal strip memory, with relay processing, of the Z2, but the war interrupted
the Z4 development.
The
Z1 was never very reliable in operation because of poor synchronization caused
by internal and external stresses on the mechanical parts.
Hawwa Hamza
ACFS BATCH 1
