Developer | Konrad Zuse |
---|---|
Manufacturer | Zuse KG |
Release date | July 1953 |
Introductory price | DM 300,000(equivalent to DM 812,445 in 2021) |
CPU | @ ca. 40 Hz |
Memory | 12 words, 36 bit [1] |
Power | 5000 watts |
Mass | ca. 2000 kg |
Predecessor | Z4 |
The Z5 was a computer designed by Konrad Zuse and manufactured by Zuse KG following an order by Ernst Leitz GmbH in Wetzlar in 1950. The computer was delivered in July 1953 [2] and was the first commercial built-to-order mainframe in Germany. The computer was purchased to help with the design of optical lens systems.
The Z5 is the successor of the Z4, and is much more compact and powerful. Zuse implemented the machine with relays, since vacuum tubes were too unreliable at the time. The Z5 used the same principles as the Z4, but was six times faster. It also had punched tape readers, which the Z4 did not have. It had conditional branching and five subroutine loops.
The Atanasoff–Berry computer (ABC) was the first automatic electronic digital computer. Limited by the technology of the day, and execution, the device has remained somewhat obscure. The ABC's priority is debated among historians of computer technology, because it was neither programmable, nor Turing-complete. Conventionally, the ABC would be considered the first electronic ALU – which is integrated into every modern processor's design.
The history of computing hardware covers the developments from early simple devices to aid calculation to modern day computers. Before the 20th century, most calculations were done by humans.
Konrad Ernst Otto Zuse 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 has often been regarded as the inventor of the modern computer.
The Z3 was a German electromechanical computer designed by Konrad Zuse in 1938, 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 5–10 Hz. Program code was stored on punched film. Initial values were entered manually.
The UNIVAC 1103 or ERA 1103, a successor to the UNIVAC 1101, was a computer system designed by Engineering Research Associates and built by the Remington Rand corporation in October 1953. It was the first computer for which Seymour Cray was credited with design work.
CSIRAC, originally known as CSIR Mk 1, was Australia's first digital computer, and the fifth stored program computer in the world. It is the oldest surviving first-generation electronic computer (the Zuse Z4 at the Deutsches Museum is older, but was electro-mechanical, not electronic), and was the first in the world to play digital music.
The Manchester Baby, also called the Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), was the first electronic stored-program computer. It was built at the University of Manchester by Frederic C. Williams, Tom Kilburn, and Geoff Tootill, and ran its first program on 21 June 1948.
The Z4 was arguably the world's first commercial digital computer. It was designed, and manufactured by early computer scientist Konrad Zuse's company Zuse Apparatebau, for an order placed by Henschel & Son, in 1942; though only partially assembled in Berlin, then completed in Göttingen, and not delivered by the defeat of Nazi Germany, in 1945. The Z4 was Zuse's final target for the Z3 design. Like the earlier Z2, it comprised a combination of mechanical memory and electromechanical logic, so was not a true electronic computer.
The Z22 was the seventh computer model Konrad Zuse developed. One of the early commercial computers, the Z22's design was finished about 1955. The major version jump from Z11 to Z22 was due to the use of vacuum tubes, as opposed to the electromechanical systems used in earlier models. The first machines built were shipped to Berlin and Aachen.
The Z1 was a motor-driven mechanical computer designed by Konrad Zuse from 1936 to 1937, which he built in his parents' home from 1936 to 1938. It was a binary electrically driven mechanical calculator with limited programmability, reading instructions from punched celluloid film.
The RAYDAC was a one-of-a-kind computer built by Raytheon. It was started in 1949 and finished in 1953. It was installed at the Naval Air Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, California.
The Z2 was an electromechanical digital computer that was completed by Konrad Zuse in 1940. It was an improvement on the Z1 Zuse built in his parents' home, which used the same mechanical memory. In the Z2, he replaced the arithmetic and control logic with 600 electrical relay circuits, weighing over 600 pounds.
The history of computer science began long before the modern discipline of computer science, usually appearing in forms like mathematics or physics. Developments in previous centuries alluded to the discipline that we now know as computer science. This progression, from mechanical inventions and mathematical theories towards modern computer concepts and machines, led to the development of a major academic field, massive technological advancement across the Western world, and the basis of a massive worldwide trade and culture.
CALDIC was an electronic digital computer built with the assistance of the Office of Naval Research at the University of California, Berkeley between 1951 and 1955 to assist and enhance research being conducted at the university with a platform for high-speed computing.
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These programs enable computers to perform a wide range of tasks. A computer system is a nominally complete computer that includes the hardware, operating system, and peripheral equipment needed and used for full operation. This term may also refer to a group of computers that are linked and function together, such as a computer network or computer cluster.
A transistor computer, now often called a second-generation computer, is a computer which uses discrete transistors instead of vacuum tubes. The first generation of electronic computers used vacuum tubes, which generated large amounts of heat, were bulky and unreliable. A second-generation computer, through the late 1950s and 1960s featured circuit boards filled with individual transistors and magnetic core memory. These machines remained the mainstream design into the late 1960s, when integrated circuits started appearing and led to the third-generation computer.
A mechanical computer is a computer built from mechanical components such as levers and gears rather than electronic components. The most common examples are adding machines and mechanical counters, which use the turning of gears to increment output displays. More complex examples could carry out multiplication and division—Friden used a moving head which paused at each column—and even differential analysis. One model, the Ascota 170 accounting machine sold in the 1960s calculated square roots.
Helmut Theodor Schreyer was a German inventor. He is mostly known for his work on the Z3, one of the first computers.
A vacuum-tube computer, now termed a first-generation computer, is a computer that uses vacuum tubes for logic circuitry. Although superseded by second-generation transistorized computers, vacuum-tube computers continued to be built into the 1960s. These computers were mostly one-of-a-kind designs.
The Zuse Z23 was a transistorized computer first delivered in 1961, designed by the Zuse KG company. A total of 98 units were sold to commercial and academic customers up until 1967. It had a 40-bit word length and used an 8192 word drum memory as main storage, with 256 words of rapid-access ferrite memory. It operated on fixed and floating-point binary numbers. Fixed-point addition took 0.3 milliseconds, a fixed point multiplication took 10.3 milliseconds. It was similar in internal design to the earlier vacuum tube Z22. Related variants were the Z25 and Z26 models.