First fully-functional programmable computerIn 1941, Konrad Zuse completed the world's firstfully-functional programmable computer (Turing-complete computer), his Z3 machine. It was also the first such computer to utilize the binary system rather than decimal system. It was an electromechanical digital computer built with 2,400 relays. The programs were input from punched rolls of discard movie film. Notably, the Z3 was programmable, whereas the independently developed Atanasoff binary ABC (1942) and ENIAC (1945-46) were special-purpose calculators, neither of which were freely programmable. The Z3 was used by the German aircraft industry to solve systems of simultaneous equations and mathematical aspects of the vibration of airframes under stress. It was destroyed in 1944 during WW II bombing raids.« |
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