Misplaced Pages

#477522

76-443: Konrad Ernst Otto Zuse ( German: [ˈkɔnʁaːt ˈtsuːzə] ; 22 June 1910 – 18 December 1995) was a German civil engineer, pioneering computer scientist , inventor and businessman. His greatest achievement was the world's first programmable computer; the functional program-controlled Turing-complete Z3 became operational in May 1941. Thanks to this machine and its predecessors, Zuse

152-401: A form factor that allows compactly installing many relays in a control panel. Although such relays once were the backbone of automation in such industries as automobile assembly, the programmable logic controller (PLC) mostly displaced the machine tool relay from sequential control applications. A relay allows circuits to be switched by electrical equipment: for example, a timer circuit with

228-478: A thermocouple or resistance thermometer sensor embedded in the winding. A polarized relay places the armature between the poles of a permanent magnet to increase sensitivity. Polarized relays were used in middle 20th Century telephone exchanges to detect faint pulses and correct telegraphic distortion . A reed relay is a reed switch enclosed in a solenoid. The switch has a set of contacts inside an evacuated or inert gas -filled glass tube that protects

304-470: A voltage spike dangerous to semiconductor circuit components. Such diodes were not widely used before the application of transistors as relay drivers, but soon became ubiquitous as early germanium transistors were easily destroyed by this surge. Some automotive relays include a diode inside the relay case. Resistors, while more durable than diodes, are less efficient at eliminating voltage spikes generated by relays and therefore not as commonly used. If

380-553: A "crazy idea" ( Schnapsidee in his own words). Zuse's workshop on Methfesselstraße 7 (along with the Z3) was destroyed in an Allied Air raid in late 1943 and the parental flat with Z1 and Z2 on 30 January the following year, whereas the successor Z4 , which Zuse had begun constructing in 1942 in new premises in the Industriehof on Oranienstraße 6, remained intact. On 3 February 1945, aerial bombing caused devastating destruction in

456-471: A calculation unit based on telephone relays. The telephone relays used in his machines were largely collected from discarded stock. Despite the absence of conditional jumps, the Z3 was a Turing complete computer. However, Turing-completeness was never considered by Zuse (who was unaware of Turing's work and had practical applications in mind) and only demonstrated in 1998 (see History of computing hardware ). The Z3,

532-489: A convenient means of generating fast rise time pulses, however although the rise time may be picoseconds, the exact timing of the event is, like all other types of relay, subject to considerable jitter, possibly milliseconds, due to mechanical variations. The same coalescence process causes another effect, which is a nuisance in some applications. The contact resistance is not stable immediately after contact closure, and drifts, mostly downwards, for several seconds after closure,

608-411: A feedback loop or sequential circuit . Such an electrically latching relay requires continuous power to maintain state, unlike magnetically latching relays or mechanically ratcheting relays. While (self-)holding circuits are often realized with relays they can also be implemented by other means. In computer memories, latching relays and other relays were replaced by delay-line memory , which in turn

684-405: A fixed contact. If the set of contacts was closed when the relay was de-energized, then the movement opens the contacts and breaks the connection, and vice versa if the contacts were open. When the current to the coil is switched off, the armature is returned by a force, approximately half as strong as the magnetic force, to its relaxed position. Usually this force is provided by a spring, but gravity

760-437: A good conductor. Contactors with overload protection devices are often used to start motors. A force-guided contacts relay has relay contacts that are mechanically linked together, so that when the relay coil is energized or de-energized, all of the linked contacts move together. If one set of contacts in the relay becomes immobilized, no other contact of the same relay will be able to move. The function of force-guided contacts

836-522: A memory based on magnetic storage. Unable to do any hardware development, he continued working on Plankalkül , eventually publishing some brief excerpts of his thesis in 1948 and 1959; the work in its entirety, however, remained unpublished until 1972. The PhD thesis was submitted at University of Augsburg , but it was rejected because Zuse forgot to pay the DM  400 university enrollment fee. The rejection did not bother him. Plankalkül slightly influenced

SECTION 10

#1732852591478

912-458: A relay could switch power at a preset time. For many years relays were the standard method of controlling industrial electronic systems. A number of relays could be used together to carry out complex functions ( relay logic ). The principle of relay logic is based on relays which energize and de-energize associated contacts. Relay logic is the predecessor of ladder logic , which is commonly used in programmable logic controllers . A mercury relay

988-447: A relay with several normally closed (NC) contacts may stick to the unenergized position, so that when energized, the circuit through one set of contacts is broken, with a marginal gap, while the other remains closed. By introducing both NO and NC contacts, or more commonly, changeover contacts, on the same relay, it then becomes possible to guarantee that if any NC contact is closed, all NO contacts are open, and conversely, if any NO contact

1064-475: A single pulse of control power to operate the switch persistently. Another pulse applied to a second set of control terminals, or a pulse with opposite polarity, resets the switch, while repeated pulses of the same kind have no effects. Magnetic latching relays are useful in applications when interrupted power should not affect the circuits that the relay is controlling. Electrical relays got their start in application to telegraphs . American scientist Joseph Henry

1140-594: A team from the Free University of Berlin . Donald Knuth suggested a thought experiment : What might have happened had the bombing not taken place, and had the PhD thesis accordingly been published as planned? In 1956, Zuse began to work on a high precision, large format plotter . It was demonstrated at the 1961 Hanover Fair , and became well known also outside of the technical world thanks to Frieder Nake 's pioneering computer art work. Other plotters designed by Zuse include

1216-404: A thin, self-renewing film of liquid mercury. For higher-power relays switching many amperes, such as motor circuit contactors, contacts are made with a mixtures of silver and cadmium oxide, providing low contact resistance and high resistance to the heat of arcing. Contacts used in circuits carrying scores or hundreds of amperes may include additional structures for heat dissipation and management of

1292-418: A typical EN 50005-compliant SPDT relay's terminals would be numbered 11, 12, 14, A1 and A2 for the C, NC, NO, and coil connections, respectively. DIN 72552 defines contact numbers in relays for automotive use: Where radio transmitters and receivers share one antenna, often a coaxial relay is used as a TR (transmit-receive) relay, which switches the antenna from the receiver to the transmitter. This protects

1368-564: A workshop on the opposite side in Methfesselstraße 7 and stretching through the block to Belle-Alliance Straße 29 (renamed and renumbered as Mehringdamm 84 in 1947). In 1941, he improved on the basic Z2 machine, and built the Z3 . On 12 May 1941 Zuse presented the Z3, built in his workshop, to the public. The Z3 was a binary 22-bit floating-point calculator featuring programmability with loops but without conditional jumps, with memory and

1444-444: Is a list of people who made transformative breakthroughs in the creation, development and imagining of what computers could do. ~ Items marked with a tilde are circa dates. Relay Relays are used where it is necessary to control a circuit by an independent low-power signal, or where several circuits must be controlled by one signal. Relays were first used in long-distance telegraph circuits as signal repeaters: they refresh

1520-435: Is a relay that uses mercury as the switching element. They are used where contact erosion would be a problem for conventional relay contacts. Owing to environmental considerations about significant amount of mercury used and modern alternatives, they are now comparatively uncommon. A mercury-wetted reed relay is a form of reed relay that employs a mercury switch , in which the contacts are wetted with mercury . Mercury reduces

1596-457: Is also used commonly in industrial motor starters. Most relays are manufactured to operate quickly. In a low-voltage application this reduces noise; in a high voltage or current application it reduces arcing . When the coil is energized with direct current , a flyback diode or snubber resistor is often placed across the coil to dissipate the energy from the collapsing magnetic field ( back EMF ) at deactivation, which would otherwise generate

SECTION 20

#1732852591478

1672-477: Is based on a gear drive that employs rotary motion (e.g. provided by a crank) to assemble modular components from a storage space, elevating a tube-shaped tower; the process is reversible, and inverting the input direction will deconstruct the tower and store the components. In 2009, the Deutsches Museum restored Zuse's original 1:30 functional model that can be extended to a height of 2.7 m. Zuse intended

1748-627: Is closed, all NC contacts are open. It is not possible to reliably ensure that any particular contact is closed, except by potentially intrusive and safety-degrading sensing of its circuit conditions, however in safety systems it is usually the NO state that is most important, and as explained above, this is reliably verifiable by detecting the closure of a contact of opposite sense. Force-guided contact relays are made with different main contact sets, either NO, NC or changeover, and one or more auxiliary contact sets, often of reduced current or voltage rating, used for

1824-412: Is held in place by a spring so that when the relay is de-energized there is an air gap in the magnetic circuit. In this condition, one of the two sets of contacts in the relay pictured is closed, and the other set is open. Other relays may have more or fewer sets of contacts depending on their function. The relay in the picture also has a wire connecting the armature to the yoke. This ensures continuity of

1900-534: Is needed. A stepping relay is a specialized kind of multi-way latching relay designed for early automatic telephone exchanges . An earth-leakage circuit breaker includes a specialized latching relay. Very early computers often stored bits in a magnetically latching relay, such as ferreed or the later remreed in the 1ESS switch . Some early computers used ordinary relays as a kind of latch —they store bits in ordinary wire-spring relays or reed relays by feeding an output wire back as an input, resulting in

1976-442: Is often cited to have invented a relay in 1835 in order to improve his version of the electrical telegraph , developed earlier in 1831. However, an official patent was not issued until 1840 to Samuel Morse for his telegraph, which is now called a relay. The mechanism described acted as a digital amplifier, repeating the telegraph signal, and thus allowing signals to be propagated as far as desired. The word relay appears in

2052-407: Is partly offset by the increased costs in the external circuit. In another type, a ratchet relay has a ratchet mechanism that holds the contacts closed after the coil is momentarily energized. A second impulse, in the same or a separate coil, releases the contacts. This type may be found in certain cars, for headlamp dipping and other functions where alternating operation on each switch actuation

2128-400: Is present; changing the orientation of the reeds or degaussing the switch with respect to the solenoid's magnetic field can resolve this problem. Sealed contacts with mercury-wetted contacts have longer operating lives and less contact chatter than any other kind of relay. Safety relays are devices which generally implement protection functions. In the event of a hazard, the task of such

2204-501: Is regarded by some as the inventor and father of the modern computer. Zuse was noted for the S2 computing machine, considered the first process control computer. In 1941, he founded one of the earliest computer businesses, producing the Z4 , which became the world's first commercial computer. From 1943 to 1945 he designed Plankalkül , the first high-level programming language . In 1969, Zuse suggested

2280-438: Is to enable the safety circuit to check the status of the relay. Force-guided contacts are also known as "positive-guided contacts", "captive contacts", "locked contacts", "mechanically linked contacts", or "safety relays". These safety relays have to follow design rules and manufacturing rules that are defined in one main machinery standard EN 50205 : Relays with forcibly guided (mechanically linked) contacts. These rules for

2356-519: Is used to split the flux into two out-of-phase components which add together, increasing the minimum pull on the armature during the AC cycle. Typically this is done with a small copper "shading ring" crimped around a portion of the core that creates the delayed, out-of-phase component, which holds the contacts during the zero crossings of the control voltage. Contact materials for relays vary by application. Materials with low contact resistance may be oxidized by

Konrad Zuse - Misplaced Pages Continue

2432-578: The DLR ), which used his work for the production of glide bombs . Zuse built the S1 and S2 computing machines, which were special purpose devices which computed aerodynamic corrections to the wings of radio-controlled flying bombs. The S2 featured an integrated analog-to-digital converter under program control, making it the first process-controlled computer. In 1941 Zuse started a company, Zuse Apparatebau (Zuse Apparatus Construction), to manufacture his machines, renting

2508-599: The Luisenstadt , the area around Oranienstraße , including neighbouring houses. This event effectively brought Zuse's research and development to a complete halt. The partially finished, telephone relay-based Z4 computer was then packed and moved from Berlin on 14 February, arriving in Göttingen approximately two weeks later. These machines contributed to the Henschel Werke Hs 293 and Hs 294 guided missiles developed by

2584-514: The German military between 1941 and 1945, which were the precursors to the modern cruise missile . The circuit design of the S1 was the predecessor of Zuse's Z11 . Zuse believed that these machines had been captured by occupying Soviet troops in 1945. While working on his Z4 computer, Zuse realised that programming in machine code was too complicated. He started working on a PhD thesis, containing groundbreaking research years ahead of its time, mainly

2660-451: The Nazi war effort. Much later, he suggested that in modern times, the best scientists and engineers usually have to choose between either doing their work for more or less questionable business and military interests in a Faustian bargain , or not pursuing their line of work at all. After Zuse retired, he focused on his hobby of painting. He signed his paintings as "Kuno [von und zu] See". Zuse

2736-547: The Relay and Switch Industry Association define 23 distinct electrical contact forms found in relays and switches. Of these, the following are commonly encountered: The S ( single ) or D ( double ) designator for the pole count may be replaced with a number, indicating multiple contacts connected to a single actuator . For example, 4PDT indicates a four-pole double-throw relay that has 12 switching terminals. EN 50005 are among applicable standards for relay terminal numbering;

2812-502: The Z1 and its original blueprints were destroyed with his parents' flat and many neighbouring buildings by a British air raid in World War II . Zuse completed his work entirely independently of other leading computer scientists and mathematicians of his day. Between 1936 and 1945, he was in near-total intellectual isolation. In 1939, Zuse was called to military service , where he was given

2888-603: The Z3, as well as the original Z4, is in the Deutsches Museum in Munich. The Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin has an exhibition devoted to Zuse, displaying twelve of his machines, including a replica of the Z1 and several of Zuse's paintings. The 100th anniversary of his birth was celebrated by exhibitions, lectures and workshops. List of pioneers in computer science This

2964-501: The ZUSE Z90 and ZUSE Z9004. In 1967, Zuse suggested that the universe itself is running on a cellular automaton or similar computational structure ( digital physics ); in 1969, he published the book Rechnender Raum (translated into English as Calculating Space ). Between 1989 and 1995, Zuse conceptualized and created a purely mechanical, extensible, modular tower automaton he named "helix tower" ( "Helixturm" ). The structure

3040-539: The air, or may tend to "stick" instead of cleanly parting when opening. Contact material may be optimized for low electrical resistance, high strength to withstand repeated operations, or high capacity to withstand the heat of an arc. Where very low resistance is required, or low thermally-induced voltages are desired, gold-plated contacts may be used, along with palladium and other non-oxidizing, semi-precious metals. Silver or silver-plated contacts are used for signal switching. Mercury-wetted relays make and break circuits using

3116-463: The arc produced when interrupting the circuit. Some relays have field-replaceable contacts, such as certain machine tool relays; these may be replaced when worn out, or changed between normally open and normally closed state, to allow for changes in the controlled circuit. Since relays are switches , the terminology applied to switches is also applied to relays; a relay switches one or more poles , each of whose contacts can be thrown by energizing

Konrad Zuse - Misplaced Pages Continue

3192-458: The change perhaps being 0.5 ohm. Multi-voltage relays are devices designed to work for wide voltage ranges such as 24 to 240 VAC and VDC and wide frequency ranges such as 0 to 300 Hz. They are indicated for use in installations that do not have stable supply voltages. Electric motors need overcurrent protection to prevent damage from over-loading the motor, or to protect against short circuits in connecting cables or internal faults in

3268-449: The circuit between the moving contacts on the armature, and the circuit track on the printed circuit board (PCB) via the yoke , which is soldered to the PCB. When an electric current is passed through the coil it generates a magnetic field that activates the armature, and the consequent movement of the movable contact(s) either makes or breaks (depending upon construction) a connection with

3344-421: The coil. Normally open (NO) contacts connect the circuit when the relay is activated; the circuit is disconnected when the relay is inactive. Normally closed (NC) contacts disconnect the circuit when the relay is activated; the circuit is connected when the relay is inactive. All of the contact forms involve combinations of NO and NC connections. The National Association of Relay Manufacturers and its successor,

3420-405: The coil. The advantage is that one coil consumes power only for an instant while the relay is being switched, and the relay contacts retain this setting across a power outage. A latching relay allows remote control of building lighting without the hum that may be produced from a continuously (AC) energized coil. In one mechanism, two opposing coils with an over-center spring or permanent magnet hold

3496-456: The concept of a computation-based universe in his book Rechnender Raum ( Calculating Space ). Much of his early work was financed by his family and commerce, but after 1939 he was given resources by the government of Nazi Germany . Due to World War II , Zuse's work went largely unnoticed in the United Kingdom and United States. Possibly his first documented influence on a US company

3572-525: The contact resistance and mitigates the associated voltage drop. Surface contamination may result in poor conductivity for low-current signals. For high-speed applications, the mercury eliminates contact bounce, and provides virtually instantaneous circuit closure. Mercury wetted relays are position-sensitive and must be mounted according to the manufacturer's specifications. Because of the toxicity and expense of liquid mercury, these relays have increasingly fallen into disuse. The high speed of switching action of

3648-479: The contacts against atmospheric corrosion ; the contacts are made of magnetic material that makes them move under the influence of the field of the enclosing solenoid or an external magnet. Reed relays can switch faster than larger relays and require very little power from the control circuit. However, they have relatively low switching current and voltage ratings. Though rare, the reeds can become magnetized over time, which makes them stick "on", even when no current

3724-411: The contacts in position after the coil is de-energized. A pulse to one coil turns the relay on, and a pulse to the opposite coil turns the relay off. This type is widely used where control is from simple switches or single-ended outputs of a control system, and such relays are found in avionics and numerous industrial applications. Another latching type has a remanent core that retains the contacts in

3800-546: The contacts. To prevent short over current spikes from causing nuisance triggering the armature movement is damped with a dashpot . The thermal and magnetic overload detections are typically used together in a motor protection relay. Electronic overload protection relays measure motor current and can estimate motor winding temperature using a "thermal model" of the motor armature system that can be set to provide more accurate motor protection. Some motor protection relays include temperature detector inputs for direct measurement from

3876-460: The context of electromagnetic operations from 1860 onwards. A simple electromagnetic relay consists of a coil of wire wrapped around a soft iron core (a solenoid), an iron yoke which provides a low reluctance path for magnetic flux, a movable iron armature , and one or more sets of contacts (there are two contacts in the relay pictured). The armature is hinged to the yoke and mechanically linked to one or more sets of moving contacts. The armature

SECTION 50

#1732852591478

3952-415: The design of ALGOL 58 but was itself implemented only in 1975 in a dissertation by Joachim Hohmann. Heinz Rutishauser , one of the inventors of ALGOL , wrote: "The very first attempt to devise an algorithmic language was undertaken in 1948 by K. Zuse. His notation was quite general, but the proposal never attained the consideration it deserved." Further implementations followed in 1998 and then in 2000 by

4028-544: The design of advertisements. He started work as a design engineer at the Henschel aircraft factory in Schönefeld near Berlin . This required the performance of many routine calculations by hand, leading him to theorize and plan a way of doing them by machine. Beginning in 1935, he experimented in the construction of computers in his parents' flat on Wrangelstraße 38, moving with them into their new flat on Methfesselstraße 10,

4104-471: The family moved to Hoyerswerda , where he passed his Abitur in 1928, qualifying him to enter university. He enrolled at Technische Hochschule Berlin (now Technische Universität Berlin ) and explored both engineering and architecture, but found them boring. Zuse then pursued civil engineering, graduating in 1935. After graduation, Zuse worked for the Ford Motor Company , using his artistic skills in

4180-481: The first fully operational electromechanical computer, was partially financed by German government-supported DVL, which wanted their extensive calculations automated. A request by his co-worker Helmut Schreyer —who had helped Zuse build the Z3 prototype in 1938—for government funding for an electronic successor to the Z3 was denied as "strategically unimportant". In 1937, Schreyer had advised Zuse to use vacuum tubes as switching elements; Zuse at this time considered it

4256-486: The first high-level programming language, Plankalkül ("Plan Calculus") and, as an elaborate example program, the first real computer chess engine. After the 1945 Luisenstadt bombing, he fled from Berlin to the rural Allgäu . In the extreme deprivation of post-war Germany Zuse was unable to build computers. Zuse founded one of the earliest computer companies: the Zuse-Ingenieurbüro Hopferau . Capital

4332-402: The full construction to reach a height of 120 m, and envisioned it for use with wind power generators and radio transmission installations. Between 1987 and 1989, Zuse recreated the Z1, suffering a heart attack midway through the project. It cost 800,000  DM (approximately $ 500,000) and required four individuals (including Zuse) to assemble it. Funding for this retrocomputing project

4408-407: The mercury-wetted relay is a notable advantage. The mercury globules on each contact coalesce , and the current rise time through the contacts is generally considered to be a few picoseconds. However, in a practical circuit it may be limited by the inductance of the contacts and wiring. It was quite common, before restrictions on the use of mercury, to use a mercury-wetted relay in the laboratory as

4484-456: The monitoring system. Contacts may be all NO, all NC, changeover, or a mixture of these, for the monitoring contacts, so that the safety system designer can select the correct configuration for the particular application. Safety relays are used as part of an engineered safety system. A latching relay, also called impulse , bistable , keep , or stay relay, or simply latch , maintains either contact position indefinitely without power applied to

4560-415: The motor windings. The overload sensing devices are a form of heat operated relay where a coil heats a bimetallic strip , or where a solder pot melts, to operate auxiliary contacts. These auxiliary contacts are in series with the motor's contactor coil, so they turn off the motor when it overheats. This thermal protection operates relatively slowly allowing the motor to draw higher starting currents before

4636-527: The operated position by the remanent magnetism in the core. This type requires a current pulse of opposite polarity to release the contacts. A variation uses a permanent magnet that produces part of the force required to close the contact; the coil supplies sufficient force to move the contact open or closed by aiding or opposing the field of the permanent magnet. A polarity controlled relay needs changeover switches or an H-bridge drive circuit to control it. The relay may be less expensive than other types, but this

SECTION 60

#1732852591478

4712-418: The protection relay will trip. Where the overload relay is exposed to the same ambient temperature as the motor, a useful though crude compensation for motor ambient temperature is provided. The other common overload protection system uses an electromagnet coil in series with the motor circuit that directly operates contacts. This is similar to a control relay but requires a rather high fault current to operate

4788-420: The receiver from the high power of the transmitter. Such relays are often used in transceivers which combine transmitter and receiver in one unit. The relay contacts are designed not to reflect any radio frequency power back toward the source, and to provide very high isolation between receiver and transmitter terminals. The characteristic impedance of the relay is matched to the transmission line impedance of

4864-462: The relay is driving a large, or especially a reactive load, there may be a similar problem of surge currents around the relay output contacts. In this case a snubber circuit (a capacitor and resistor in series) across the contacts may absorb the surge. Suitably rated capacitors and the associated resistor are sold as a single packaged component for this commonplace use. If the coil is designed to be energized with alternating current (AC), some method

4940-694: The resources to ultimately build the Z2 . In September 1940 Zuse presented the Z2, covering several rooms in the parental flat, to experts of the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt (DVL; German Research Institute for Aviation). The Z2 was a revised version of the Z1 using telephone relays . In 1940, the German government began funding him and his company through the Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt (AVA, Aerodynamic Research Institute, forerunner of

5016-569: The safety design are the one defined in type B standards such as EN 13849-2 as Basic safety principles and Well-tried safety principles for machinery that applies to all machines. Force-guided contacts by themselves can not guarantee that all contacts are in the same state, however, they do guarantee, subject to no gross mechanical fault, that no contacts are in opposite states. Otherwise, a relay with several normally open (NO) contacts may stick when energized, with some contacts closed and others still slightly open, due to mechanical tolerances. Similarly,

5092-802: The signal coming in from one circuit by transmitting it on another circuit. Relays were used extensively in telephone exchanges and early computers to perform logical operations. The traditional electromechanical form of a relay uses an electromagnet to close or open the contacts, but relays using other operating principles have also been invented, such as in solid-state relays which use semiconductor properties for control without relying on moving parts . Relays with calibrated operating characteristics and sometimes multiple operating coils are used to protect electrical circuits from overload or faults; in modern electric power systems these functions are performed by digital instruments still called protective relays or safety relays . Latching relays require only

5168-553: The street leading up the Kreuzberg , Berlin. Working in his parents' apartment in 1936, he produced his first attempt, the Z1 , a floating-point binary mechanical calculator with limited programmability, reading instructions from a perforated 35 mm film. In 1937, Zuse submitted two patents that anticipated a von Neumann architecture . In 1938, he finished the Z1 which contained some 30,000 metal parts and never worked well due to insufficient mechanical precision. On 30 January 1944,

5244-404: The system, for example, 50 ohms. A contactor is a heavy-duty relay with higher current ratings, used for switching electric motors and lighting loads. Continuous current ratings for common contactors range from 10 amps to several hundred amps. High-current contacts are made with alloys containing silver . The unavoidable arcing causes the contacts to oxidize; however, silver oxide is still

5320-675: Was IBM 's option on his patents in 1946. The Z4 also served as the inspiration for the construction of the ERMETH , the first Swiss computer and one of the first in Europe. Konrad Zuse was born in Berlin on 22 June 1910. In 1912, his family moved to East Prussian Braunsberg (now Braniewo in Poland ), where his father was a postal clerk. Zuse attended the Collegium Hosianum in Braunsberg, and in 1923,

5396-649: Was an atheist . Zuse died on 18 December 1995 in Hünfeld , Hesse (near Fulda ) from heart failure. Zuse received several awards for his work: The Zuse Institute Berlin is named in his honour. The Konrad Zuse Medal of the Gesellschaft für Informatik , and the Konrad Zuse Medal of the Zentralverband des Deutschen Baugewerbes (Central Association of German Construction), are both named after Zuse. A replica of

5472-714: Was not until 1949 that Zuse was able to resume work on the Z4. He would show the computer to the mathematician Eduard Stiefel of the ETH Zurich. The two men settled a deal to lend the Z4 to the ETH. In November 1949, Zuse founded another company, Zuse KG, in Haunetal-Neukirchen ; in 1957, the company's head office moved to Bad Hersfeld . The Z4 was finished and delivered to the ETH Zurich in July 1950, where it proved very reliable. At that time, it

5548-620: Was provided by Siemens and a consortium of five companies. Konrad Zuse married Gisela Brandes in January 1945, employing a carriage, himself dressed in tailcoat and top hat and with Gisela in a wedding veil, for Zuse attached importance to a "noble ceremony". Their son Horst , the first of five children, was born in November 1945. While Zuse never became a member of the Nazi Party , he is not known to have expressed any doubts or qualms about working for

5624-587: Was raised in 1946 through ETH Zurich and an IBM option on Zuse's patents. In 1947, according to the memoirs of the German computer pioneer Heinz Billing from the Max Planck Institute for Physics , there was a meeting between Alan Turing and Konrad Zuse in Göttingen . The encounter had the form of a colloquium . Participants were Womersley , Turing, Porter from England and a few German researchers like Zuse, Walther, and Billing. (For more details see Herbert Bruderer, Konrad Zuse und die Schweiz ). It

5700-407: Was replaced by a series of ever faster and ever smaller memory technologies. A machine tool relay is a type standardized for industrial control of machine tools , transfer machines, and other sequential control. They are characterized by a large number of contacts (sometimes extendable in the field) which are easily converted from normally open to normally closed status, easily replaceable coils, and

5776-605: Was the only working digital computer in Central Europe, and the second computer in the world to be sold or loaned, beaten only by the BINAC , which never worked properly after it was delivered. Other computers, all numbered with a leading Z, up to Z43, were built by Zuse and his company. Notable are the Z11 , which was sold to the optics industry and to universities, and the Z22 , the first computer with

#477522