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The Life and Work of Konrad Zuse (by Horst Zuse) |
| Please note that some of the literature on Konrad Zuse referenced below was not published in journals. This was due to the political situation in Germany from 1933 and the post war era. | |
| [BAUE98] |
Bauer, Friedrich, L.: Wer erfand den Neumannschen Rechner? Informatik Spektrum, April 98, pp. 84ff
This is an article written in the German language where F.L. Bauer discusses the dispute of the invention of the stored program computer. |
| [BURK46] |
Burks, A.W.; Goldstine, H.H. Neumann, John von: Preliminary Discussion of the Logical Design of an Electronical Computing Instrument, 1946. In: Taub, A.H. (Editor), Collected Works of John von Neumann, Vol. 5, New York, Macmillan, 1963, pp. 34-79. Also in Randell von 1973 [RAND73], pp. 371ff.
This is an article from 1946 in which the basic principles of a computer are explained. Here, the separation of the control unit, arithmetic unit, memory, and input and output devices are required. Burks et al. also proposed to store the program together with the data in the memory. However, Konrad Zuse had already implemented the separation of the different units of a computer in 1938 with the Z1 and in 1941 with the Z3. It is correct, that Konrad Zuses machines did not store the program in the memory of the machine. However, Konrad Zuse had already mentioned this possibility in 1936/37 [ZUSE36], [ZUSE37a]. |
| [GILO97] |
Giloi, Wolfgang, K.: Konrad Zuses Plankalkül: The First High-Level "non von Neumann" Programming Language. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 19, No. 2, 1997.
In this article, Giloi describes the fundamental ideas of Konrad Zuses Plankalkül and points out that this proposal is much closer to Prolog than to the imperative languages. |
| [IEEE85] |
IEEE: IEEE Standard for Binary Floating Point Arithmetic (ANSI / IEEE Std 754-1985), New York, August 1985.
This is the IEEE standard for floating point numbers from 1985. The standard also uses a semi-logarithm representation of floating point numbers. The binary floating point numbers are divided in a mantissa and an exponent. The representation of the numbers 0 and ±infinity are identical to Konrad Zuses implementations in the Z1 (1938) and his subsequent Z machines. |
| [NEUM45] |
Neumann, John von: First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC. Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvenia, June 30, 1945. In [RAND73], pp. 355ff.
In this paper John von Neumann describes the architecture of computing machines. Among others, John von Neumann proposes the principle of the separation of the units of a computer (control unit, memory, arithmetic unit, and input/output devices). He also proposes the principle of the stored program computer. However, it is important to mention here that Konrad Zuse had already implemented the separation of the units of a computer in 1938 with the Z1. In [ZUSE36] and [ZUSE37a] Konrad Zuse mentions the possibility to store various things in a memory, including instructions amongst other things. |
| [ZUSE69] | Zuse, Konrad: Rechnender Raum, Schriften zur Datenverarbeitung Band 1. Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig (1969). |
| [ZUSE72] | Zuse, Konrad: Der Plankalkül. Gesellschaft für Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung. Nr. 63, BMBW - GMD - 63, 1972. |
| [ZUSE86] | Zuse, Konrad: Der Computer - Mein Lebenswerk. 2. Auflage, Springer-Verlag, 1986. |
| [ZUSE93] |
Zuse, Konrad: The Computer My Life. Springer Publisher, 1993.
This is the English translation of [ZUSE86]. |
| [ZUSE98] | Zuse, Horst: Konrad Zuse Multimedia Show, included a 330 page hypertext system with more than 500 pictures and 30 videos about Konrad Zuse and his Zuse KG, 1998. Also a simulation of the Z3 is implemented and it is possible to run example programs. At this time the show is in German, the English version will be available in October 1999. The show is available from the author from his web site at: http://www.horst-zuse.homepage.t-online.de. |
| [ZUSE99] |
Zuse, Horst: A limited edition of Konrad Zuse's oil paintings from the author's web site at http://www.horst-zuse.homepage.t-online.de.
Under this URL a limited edition of seven oil paintings of Konrad Zuse from 1964 to 1995 is offered. The format of each painting is 40cm x 60cm. |
| [ZUSE99a] |
Zuse, Horst: John von Neumanns Computer Concepts versus Konrad Zuses Ideas and the Machines Z1 and Z3 available from the author's web site at http://www.horst-zuse.homepage.t-online.de.
This is a collection of statements of Konrad Zuse related to the stored program computer. |
| [ZUSE99b] |
Zuse, Horst: Geschichte der Programmiersprachen. Technischer Bericht 1/99, TU-Berlin, 1999. Also available on the Internet from: http://www.cs.tu-berlin.de/~zuse.
This is a report about the development of programming languages, in which the work of twenty pioneers is described. |
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