[COFF] German Z4 User Manual from 1945 found

[COFF] German Z4 User Manual from 1945 found

[rudi.j.blom]

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Nothing to do with UNIX, but a reminder that occasionally long thought
lost manuals still pop-up.

"Researchers will be able to gain a deeper understanding of what’s
considered the world’s oldest surviving (digital) computer after its
long-lost user manual was unearthed. The Z4, which was built in 1945,
runs on tape, takes up most of a room and needs several people to
operate it. The machine now takes residence at the Deutsches Museum in
Munich, but it hasn’t been used in quite some time."
https://www.engadget.com/oldest-computer-manual-zuse-z4-161214346.html

[COFF] German Z4 User Manual from 1945 found

[dave]

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On Sat, 26 Sep 2020, Rudi Blom wrote:

> "Researchers will be able to gain a deeper understanding of what’s
> considered the world’s oldest surviving (digital) computer after its
> long-lost user manual was unearthed. The Z4, which was built in 1945,
> runs on tape, takes up most of a room and needs several people to
> operate it. The machine now takes residence at the Deutsches Museum in
> Munich, but it hasn’t been used in quite some time."
> https://www.engadget.com/oldest-computer-manual-zuse-z4-161214346.html

Which reminds me of the Z3; from Wikipedia:

``The Z3 was a German electromechanical computer designed by Konrad
   Zuse in 1935, and completed in 1941. It was the world's first working
   programmable, fully automatic digital computer. The Z3 was built
   with 2,600 relays, implementing a 22-bit word length that operated
   at a clock frequency of about 4–5 Hz. Program code was stored on
   punched film. Initial values were entered manually.

   The Z3 was completed in Berlin in 1941. It was not considered vital,
   so it was never put into everyday operation. Based on the work of
   Hans Georg Küssner (cf. Küssner effect) e.g.  a "Program to Compute
   a Complex Matrix" was written and used to solve wing flutter problems.
   Zuse asked the German government for funding to replace the relays
   with fully electronic switches, but funding was denied during World
   War II since such development was deemed "not war-important".

   The original Z3 was destroyed on 21 December 1943 during an Allied
   bombardment of Berlin. That Z3 was originally called V3 (Versuchsmodell
   3 or Experimental Model 3) but was renamed so that it would not to
   be confused with Germany's V-weapons. A fully functioning replica
   was built in 1961 by Zuse's company, Zuse KG, which is now on
   permanent display at Deutsches Museum in Munich.

   The Z3 was demonstrated in 1998 to be, in principle, Turing-complete.
   However, because it lacked conditional branching, the Z3 only meets
   this definition by speculatively computing all possible outcomes
   of a calculation.

   Thanks to this machine and its predecessors, Konrad Zuse has often
   been suggested as the inventor of the computer.''

-- Dave