Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/05/01

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Subject: RE: [Leica] Computer history - off topic (slightly)
From: Jorg Willems <jorg@salesmedia.com>
Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 11:52:11 -0400

If my memory serves me right, Konrad Zuse build his first computer in the 
living room of his parents around 1936 in Berlin.  It was the first 
computer using solenoid relays and a central tact to switch all the relays 
at the same time.  All digital computer work on the same principle.
BTW, I did my first programming in Hamburg, Germany, on a Zuse Z4 (?) 
world's first fully transistorized computer (40 bit and 4k drum memory 
located in a cabinet that would not fit into my office).  Before my math 
teacher, Dr. Kunsemueller, started teaching, he did some work calculating 
optics by hand.  He told us about the first use of a computer for 
calculating optics, but that was before 1969.  I wonder if that was the 
Zuse Z5?

Regards Jorg

P.S. Katariina added some of our Nome pictures to her web site 
(www.mindspring.com/~kati)



The Zuse Z5, built in Switzerland by Konrad Zuse.  VF 22:1 (1988).

Marc


msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!