Konrad Zuse was a brilliant engineer who independently worked on the creation of programmable computers. Having developed these mechanisms on his own, Zuse, nevertheless, received machines with many functions characteristic of later computers. Although its first machines were destroyed during World War II, after the war, Zuse KG became a successful computer manufacturer.
Konrad was lucky with his parents, because they not only "put up" with Konrad's experiments, they actually financed their creation. From childhood, Konrad was interested in automatic machines and even assembled a chocolate dispensing machine. At the age of 18, he enrolled as an architecture and civil engineering student at the University of Berlin, and discovered his dislike for conventional calculations.
Drawing of nodes Z1 from the patent specification.
Zuse hated the tedious calculations of many simultaneous linear equations, but the only way to get the result was manual calculations. They could take months, and Konrad thought it was a terrible waste of time. His thoughts turned to ways of automating calculations: we can say that he decided not to do calculations, but … to invent a computer!
Versuchsmodell or * Experimental Model *.
Already a skilled engineer, in 1936 Zuse began his pioneering work on computing machines. From the simplest parts: metal plates, pins and film, Konrad assembled a single Z1 movement. It was the first of several mechanical computers for Zuse.
The Z1 was assembled by Konrad with his friend Helmut Schreyer in the living room of Zuse's parents in 1936-1938. The V1 (Versuchsmodell or "Experimental Model"), later renamed Z1 (Zuse1), took up about 2 meters by 2 meters, weighed about 500 kg, and was completely mechanical. For the construction were used parts from the German designer for children Meccano. The Z1 consisted of a thousand thin slotted metal plates that served as its "memory".
Z1 in the living room of Zuse's parents.
Promotional video:
The data download was realized through a special reader: Konrad Zuse used an old 35 mm film with punched holes for this. The Z1 also had a typewriter keyboard and displayed the results using bulbs on a special socket.
Although his mechanical design was ingenious, the most important feature was that he used a binary encoding: all mechanical calculators up to Z1 were based on decimal arithmetic. The adoption of binary code allowed Zuse to avoid the complexities of decimal arithmetic and also led to a modular design using a mechanical analogue of logic gates.
Element of mechanical binary logic.
Z1 could only add and subtract, multiplication was done by repeated addition. The car was not reliable and very slow. It had nine instructions, and each of them took several cycles, and each cycle took one second.
A copy of this computer is on display at the Museum für Verkehr und Technik in Berlin.