Description
Many outstanding scientists and managers were necessary to get the computer to the point of development that we know today. Konrad Zuse (1910-1995) is almost unanimously accepted as the inventor of the first working, freely programmable machine using Boolean logic and with binary floating point numbers. He finished this Machine - called Z3 - in May 1941 in his small workshop in Berlin-Kreuzberg.
This presentation will describe the achievements of Charles Babbage, the development of the secret COLOSSUS-Project, Howard Aiken’s Mark I and the ENIAC.
Konrad Zuse’s contributions to computer development are presented as well, with many intriguing pictures and videos. It is not well known that Konrad Zuse founded, in 1949, a computer company that produced 251 computers of a value of 51 million euros. It was the first company to produce computers in a commercial way.
Horst Zuse was born in Hindelang (Bavaria in Germany) and received a PhD in computer science from the Technische Universität (TUB) of Berlin in 1985. He has been a senior research scientist at TUB since 1975. His research interests are information retrieval systems, software engineering, software metrics, computer history and computer architectures.
He has published several books including ‘Software Complexity - Measures and Methods’ and ‘A Framework for Software Measurement’ (De Gruyter Publisher). Zuse has received his ‘habilitation’ in 1998 and is a Professor with the University of Applied Sciences in Senftenberg since 2006.
