Between punched film and the There are several things that are remarkable first computers, the work of about the work of Konrad Zuse,; first of all Konrad Zuse. the fact that his achievements were as far as By Andrés Burbano PhD Student possible at such time of any kind of military University of California Santa Barbara use; secondly the economic conditions and Media Arts and Technology context in which those machines were built. MAT 200C with Professor Stephen Travis how creative and (hacker) he was in several Pope - Winter 2008. aspects even in re inventing the Boolena [email protected] Algebra; thirdly his persistence -most of his The interview for this paper with professor machines were destroyed during the WW II-, Hosrt Zuse was possible due the collaboration and finally his double role as a scientist - his of Juan Carlos Orozco in Berlin. work includes the creation of the first Abstract programming language, the Plankalküll- and a The Z3 computer made by Konrad Zuse in he was even a painter. 1941 in Berlin is described, paying attention in detail to the facts and inspirations related Self portrait by Konrad Zuse. Horst Zuse Web Site. with the use of punched film as a store Besides professor Raúl Rojas others like medium in that machine. The text has several professor Horst Zuse, Konrad Zuse’s first son interventions by Horst Zuse, oldest soon of have contributed to the understanding of Konrad Zuse. Konrad Zuse’s work, and in this case the latter Introduction will be his voice and will guide us trough the Recently the recognition to the work of work his father. Horst Zuse had a special Konrad Zuse (1910-1995) is increasing given relationship with his father and he was the his achievements as a pioneer of the eyewitness of that process that so important automatic calculator machines and computers for all of us today. but specially because since the end of the last Before the Z3 century, thanks to the work of professor Raúl The Z1 was the first machine that Konrad Rojas, amongst others, it became evident that Zuse built, in fact, that machine has the same the Z3 machine, can be considered as the first, conceptual architecture than the Z3, the Z1 electronic (in fact electro mechanical), machine was made between 1936 and 1938 in programable, binary computer in history. Berlin and it shows in different ways how Thanks to a deep study of the patents made by Zuse found consistently important and small Zuse in the 1930’s and 1940’s and the creation solutions for the practical problems of of simulations Professor Raúl Rojas creating advanced calculating machines. Both demonstrated to the computer sciences of the machines that Zuse made before the Z3 community that the Z3 is Turing complete. (1938 - 1941), the Z1 (1936-1938) and the Z2 Nowadays even in Wikipedia it is possible to (1940-1941) were privately financed and were find information about the work of Konrad assembled at the beginning in the leaving Zuse and the Z3 computer, it is often present room of his parents home in Berlin. (reference in historical context together with machines to the text by Kittler). as the Harvard Mark 1 and the ENIAC, In the Z2 machine Zuse included telephone however there is not much information at relays for the first time, despite the fact that available about the particular characteristics Zuse knew at that time about the benefits that of Z3. working with vacuum tubes can bring, he Nowadays Professor Raúl Rojas, is the decided to work with telephone relays director of a large project called the “Konrad because they were more accessible. Even Zuse Internet Archive” were its possible to though the work by Zuse was incredibly access the simulations that helped him to advanced, only a few people saw the understand the Z3 machine, as well as the potentiality of such machines. original Zuse’s patents and in general a bast Original telephone relay for Z1, Z2 and Z3. Horst collection of theoretical works about the work Zuse Web Site. by Konrad Zuze from his first machines as the To be able to understand the relevance of Z1 to his later works. Suzeís work it is important to to bear two Re:live Media Art Histories 2009 conference proceedings 12 things in mind: the first one is that at that time In order to understand the principles of this the word “computers” was used to talk about device, we need first to figure out how many humans that had the task of doing complex relays Z3 had and how they were distributed. calculations, that means that no machine was The different components of that machine considered as a “computer” and the second were made with this basic unit: relay (bit). one is that Zuse didn’t have communication The Z3 had 2000 relays, 700 for the memory, with his pairs in the United Kingdom or the that amount of bits were duplicated because United States, so far we can deduce that he its necessity to store the numbers so in total didn’t know the theoretical background of the there were 1400 relays, another 600 relays computational theory of Church and Turing were used for the processor that include “X” and neither did he know the work of people only for the arithmetic unit. like John von Neuman at that time, it will Z3 Aritmetic Unit. Horst Zuse Web Site. happen a long as the time of the WWII. The Z3 had other components as the input In the words of Horst Zuse: keyboard, and the system to display out puts “This machine [the Z3] is very remarkable with lamps and the possibility to store and and it is accepted today as the first working read instructions in punched film, we will talk digital computer world wide, or the first about that in some detail later on. computer with some reductions, because this Z3 Architecture. Horst Zuse Web Site. machine only had an arithmetic unit not a The Z3 computer was able to perform 9 logical unit so it was not possible to compare operations, the 4 basic operations which are: numbers, it was too complicated at this time addition, subtraction, multiplication and it to realize it. However it was constructed -how was also able to calculate the square root. The to say- as a minimal system because he was other four instructions were related with very poor... the financial situation was the memory management and input out processes following: the Z1 was completely privately like taking the number from a key board and financed, it was the Z1 you can see he worked placing it in the register, display the number at the living room of his parents and it was in the register, and finally store and load the financed by his parents, his father - who was numbers from the memory. That machine a postman- and then his sister -she was a used float point numbers, the numbers were teacher-, some friends from he academic represented with 3 elements, one element to society gave him money and “Kurt Panker ?” determine the sign of the number, another who was the owner of a company here in element for the exponent and a third one for Berlin using simple calculating machines with the mantissa. mechanical basis, table machines, to make Z3 in Berlin -. Horst Zuse Web Site. simple calculations of additions of numbers In the words of professor Horst Zuse: but not floating point numbers and so on; “It [Z3] was a programmable machine with 9 and he gave him money, so this machine was instructions it has a memory for 64 numbers, financed privately, there was no money from or lets say 64 objects, and each object 22 bits the government for this machine. The same it was possible to put in numbers here thing happened with the Z2 it was a prototype because were only bits realized with relays, to try to work with telephone relays, and then only bits, so you could store letters or the Z3 was financed a little bit by the numbers or what you wanted, it was a binary government they gave him 20.000 “Reich memory of this machine, then there was the Marks” to built this machine ...” calculating unit (respect -arithmetic- unit The Z3 associate today) with the four basic The Z3 was a unique machine and it is in part operations in binary floating point number: the focus of this text. To understand the Z3 addition, subtraction multiplication, division computer is important to consider that it was and square root; the clock frequency of this made with telephone relays, that means that machine was 5 hertz and in addition the every telephone relay had to play the role of machine needed 3 cycles that means close to one bit, because the relays have two states, one second, 0. 8 seconds; multiplication those states that can be seen as 0 and 1 in a about 3 seconds, division the same and binary system as is the case with the Z3. square root a little bit longer. And this Re:live Media Art Histories 2009 conference proceedings 13 arithmetic unit made all the basic operations and soon it was not possible to put in the so by additions, it means that multiplication was called on the memory of this machine, so we a repeated addition as you do it at home if have the memory of he instructions on the you are multiplying two numbers and the punched tape and we have some memory for same for the division, and the square rootÖ.” the data in the Z3.” The launch of the Z3 was not a big success in Punched from Z4 machine.