Talk:Konrad Zuse

No mention of the working model at the Univery of Erlangen
Why is this not there? They have restored a Zuse Z23 and got it working. That should really be in there. -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:CD:E705:8D99:5891:F550:9332:8AA2 (talk) 13:37, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Whole reconstruction paragraph needs citations
"Between 1987 and 1989, Zuse recreated the Z1, suffering a heart attack midway through the project. It cost 800,000 DM, (approximately $500,000) and required four individuals (including Zuse) to assemble it. Funding for this retrocomputing project was provided by Siemens and a consortium of five companies." --89.25.210.104 (talk) 17:01, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 November 2019
By Telegraph Act of 1869 Mr Zuse was born into Guam ! SCpGEN (talk) 08:12, 12 November 2019 (UTC)


 * ❌. It's not clear what changes you want to make (or what you're even talking about). –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 14:40, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Zuse AG or Zuse KG?
This article, and some other places, say "Zuse KG" as Zuse's company's name. A book I have, The History of Computers by Les Freed, along with pages resulting from a Google search for "Zuse AG", say that Zuse's company was called "Zuse AG". Most of those Google results actually seem to use "Zuse KG" and "Zuse AG" interchangeably. Example: https://medium.com/predict/the-worlds-first-commercially-sold-fully-functional-computer-z4-252983cf033a --Golemwire (talk) 19:58, 2 July 2020 (UTC)


 * It's Zuse KG (Kommanditgesellschaft) (German for "Private Limited Partnership"). AG stands for "Aktiengesellschaft" (Private Limited Company / Stock Company) which Zuse's Company was not 2003:D6:F739:7E00:6DD4:1F90:9229:C50B (talk) 06:32, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

for "references" or "legacy" or something section
Someone told me SUSE Linux was named after him / in his honor. Might contact the SUSE Linux offices for confirmation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.211.210.202 (talk) 04:38, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Nope - it's an acronym for "Software und System-Entwicklung". See SUSE Linux (this is an encyclopedia :) -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:17, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Mistake found on main page
Mistake found on main page "Zuse built the S1 and S2 computing machines" i think have to correct to "Zuse built the Z1 and Z2 computing machines" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gnbc (talk • contribs) 17:11, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Addition to Awards and Honours section
Potentially worth noting here that in 2010 there was a Google Doodle dedicated to Zuse's 100th birthday shown in Germany. Nessle7 (talk) 15:47, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Preserving older source
This source was the same as the one it preceded in the article, except this one is dated 1997 and the other is dated 1998. I have moved it here to preserve it.



Lightbreather (talk) Lightbreather (talk) 21:39, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Preserving less reliable source
The last sentence of the current lead reads, "Thanks to this machine and its predecessors, Zuse has often been regarded as the inventor of the modern computer." It was followed by SIX sources, which seems a bit excessive. Of the six, the following seems the least reliable: no author, no date, no sources - and who/what is RT-Distribution (main page says "under reconstruction")? So I have removed it from the article and am preserving it here.



Lightbreather (talk) Lightbreather (talk) 00:25, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Inventor of the "modern" computer?
I see that this has been a contentious debate off- and on-wiki, but I'd like to leave my opinion here, for what it's worth. The lead currently contains the sentence, ''"Thanks to this machine and its predecessors, Zuse has often been regarded as the inventor of the modern computer."  I believe Zuse could definitely be credited as some kind'' of first in the development of the modern computer, but since there is no agreement on what defines a "modern" computer, that word does not belong in the sentence. The citations placed in support of the word don't support it. Rojas wrote: "Konrad Zuse is popularly recognized in Germany as the father of the computer, and his Z1, a programmable automaton built from 1936 to 1938, has been called the first computer in the world. Other nations reserve this honor for one of their own scientists, and there has been a long and often acrimonious debate on the issue of who is the true inventor of the computer." Flippo wrote: "The German civil engineer Konrad Zuse is considered the inventor of the first digital and programmable computers." Von Leszczynski wrote: "There's strong evidence that [Zuse] built the world's first computer in Berlin." And again, to Rojas: "... from an abstract theoretical perspective, the computing model of the Z3 is equivalent to the computing model of today's computers. From a practical perspective, and in the way the Z3 was really programmed, it was not equivalent to modern computers." (emphasis mine)

Those sources don't support use of the words "inventor of the modern computer."

What Bellis wrote - "Konrad Zuse earned the semiofficial title of 'inventor of the modern computer'" - would be great if it were sourced, but I haven't figured out how she came to make that statement. The words "inventor of the modern computer" are in quotes: who said them? How was this determined to be a "semiofficial title"?

I dug as deeply as I was able into the English sources cited. Quite a few were incomplete citations and/or lacked links to archived copies, so I fixed that. I am not going to change that lead sentence because I am avoiding conflict, but I think there is definitely an opportunity to improve this article.

Lightbreather (talk) Lightbreather (talk) 00:46, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi again. Cool to see you working in the computing topic area. I hardly ever make time for significant content editing any more but my biggest Wikipedia content work has been on the Timeline of DOS operating systems which is where I really got started on Wikipedia.
 * "Modern" is a tricky word, and I've found that care needs to be taken when broadly claiming significant "firsts". Often when you dig a little more you find an earlier, less well known innovation that the higher profile innovation built on.
 * Check out how Zuse fits in articles like timeline of inventions and history of computing hardware. Oh my, the modern era of invention started in the 17th century! I thought 1970s mainframe computers were "dinosaurs" and the "modern era" of computing started when the PC was invented! Maybe not?
 * Zuse built the first freely programmable computer in the world in 1938 – the Z1, a motor-driven mechanical computer (calculator) with limited programmability. That means someone else likely later invented "enhanced programmability"!
 * The word "modern" is sprinkled throughout the history of computing hardware article, starting with its lead sentence. William Oughtred created his circular slide rule in 1630. He followed this up with the modern slide rule in 1632. Hmm, I don't currently think of slide rules as "modern" computing devices, though they were still modern in the 1960s. I had a circular slide rule when I started college but I didn't realize it wasn't a "modern" slide rule! Its advantage over the so-called modern slide rule is that you could fit one in your pocket (by my sophomore year my dad bought me a modern calculator).
 * The history of computing hardware article omits mention of Zuse's 1938 primitive programmable device in its analog (mechanical) section, I don't know why, but mentions his Z2 and Z3 as improvements on the Z1. The Z3 was "the world's first working electromechanical programmable, fully automatic digital computer."
 * But was it the world's first "modern" computer? I suppose that depends on how one defines "modern" in the context of computers. I think we should use more specific terms, as the sentence above, rather than the more ambiguous term "modern". – wbm1058 (talk) 13:16, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * As an old-school (COBOL) programmer, I find many IT topics interesting. I was actually working on the Programmer article and that's what brought me here. Its "History" section contains the following sentence: "The first person to execute a program on a functioning, modern, electronic computer was the computer scientist Konrad Zuse in 1941." Since the sentence wasn't sourced, I followed the wikilink to this article.
 * As for use of the words "inventor of the modern computer" in this article, the Bellis source quotes Zuse's own son and biographer: "In 1941, the Z3 contained almost all the features of a modern computer as defined by John von Neumann and his colleagues in 1946. The only exception was the ability to store the program in the memory together with the data. Konrad Zuse did not implement this feature in the Z3 because his 64-word memory was too small to support this mode of operation." (bolding mine)
 * So Konrad's son Horst, himself a computer scientist, disavowed the notion that his father invented the first modern computer. Lightbreather (talk)

Note also the earlier discussion Talk:Konrad Zuse/Archive 1. – wbm1058 (talk) 13:27, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

And how Wikipedia defines "modern computer". – wbm1058 (talk) 13:34, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

German Wikipedia
Let's look at how the German wiki describes him in their lead section (translation by Google Translate)

If the Germans don't say "modern" I don't think we need to either. – wbm1058 (talk) 13:55, 4 February 2023 (UTC)


 * The idea that Zuse is often regarded as the inventor of the computer was introduced by this 14:04, 5 June 2013 edit by.
 * In February 2014 there was some edit-warring over that, but the statement stood.
 * An 11:09, 3 April 2014 edit cut to the chase: world's first programmable computer, qualifying "inventor of the computer" as "of the modern computer". – wbm1058 (talk) 14:32, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I most definitely agree with you on the wording in the lead of the German article. The claim needs that kind of detail in the English article as well - but I'm not the one to do it. Lightbreather (talk)