Re: OT

[Jan Claeys <lists@janc.be>]

On Thu, 2026-07-30 at 14:02 -0700, Van Snyder wrote:
> On Thu, 2026-07-30 at 22:56 +0200, Jan Claeys wrote:
> > On Thu, 2026-07-30 at 14:51 -0400, hlyg wrote:
> > > 1st computer ENIAC was built in US in 1945
> > 
> > Correction: Konrad Zuse finished his Z4 computer in April 1945,
> > before ENIAC was finished in May 1945.
> > 
> > And before that there were also programmable computers in several
> > countries that weren’t “potentially universal Turing machines” yet,
> > including Zuse’s Z1 in 1938, Zuse’s Z3 in 1941, the UK’s Colossus
> > in 1943, and the Harvard Mark I in 1944, etc.
> 
> How about the ABC, or Atanasoff-Berry Computer at Iowa State in 1937-
> 1942?

It was the first to do computations electronically (with vacuum tubes)
instead of electro-mechanically (with relays) or mechanically (e.g.
Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, or Zuse’s Z1), but it wasn’t
programmable.  Basically it was the ALU part of a modern CPU, but
lacking the part that interprets an instruction set.

Zuse original design plan for the Z3 was also to use vacuum tubes, and
he demonstrated a small prototype, but he couldn’t get access to the
thousands of vacuum tubes needed, so his further designs until (way)
after World War II all used mechanical relays instead.


-- 
Jan Claeys

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