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Konrad Zuse was born in Berlin, Germany.
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He graduated from the Technische Hochschule Berlin-Charlottenburg with a degree in civil engineering degree.
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He finished the plan for his first computer the V1 in 1936. He later changed the name to Z1 in order to avoid an association with the V1-V4 military rockets. In 1938 the prototype for Z1 was completed.
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Helmut Schreyer began to work with Konrad on Z1, and 1939 the Z2 computer was completed. Z2 was constructed with arithmetic and control units made by relays, but has the same memory of Z1.
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Z2 was successfully demonstrated to the Deutschen Versuchsanstalt fur Luftfahrt where he then received funding for the development of Z3.
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Z3 was finished and presented. Z3 used binary numeral system and floating-point numbers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a6HMqsYnxk -
Zuse started developing the Z4.
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He received an order from Henschel aircraft to build a computer that specialized in measuring the surface of wings of airplanes.
He finished the machine S1 in 1942. -
During 1942-1945 Zuse brainstormed on ideas as to how the machines he was creating could be programmed powerfully as he developed Z4.
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He then created the S2 in 1944. It is considered the first process computer in the world.
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Developed the first real programming language (Plankalkul) in 1944-1945.
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The war made the development of Z4 hard, and Zuse eventually had to flee Germany in 1945.
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After some years he began to reassemble Z4.
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Zuse was contacted by Professor Eduard Stiefel from ETH-Zurich who was impressed by his technology. After the encounter, he decided to create his own company, Zuse KG.
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Z4 was sold to ETH-Zurich. The computer went on the market in 1950. Z4 proved to be reliable as it worked without supervision
