Talk:Z3 (computer)

Info wanted on Z1, Z2, Z4, and Z5

What about the other computers Z1, Z2 and Z4 and Z5? --HJH

Re: the above, I note that the Z1 is also mentioned on Computer. -- IMSoP 23:36, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Z3 and computer criteria; Turing

[Also,] I've weakened the claim about "criteria for a computer", since several definitions of "computer" are in wide use. However, does anyone know if the Z3 was Turing-complete, and whether it was [one of] the first to achieve this classification, as I feel that would be worth mentioning. -- IMSoP 23:36, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It was proven to be Turing complete in 1998. It is capable of doing any computation that can be done by a Turing machine on a finite tape. It's just terribly inefficient at it since it has no branch instruction and has to simulate it arithmetically with large amounts of program tape, but that's irrelevant to the question. Andreas B. 00:11, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

So would that make it the first 'computer'? Turing-completeness is the only definition I've ever heard to qualify as such...--71.126.156.247 (talk) 05:57, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

As you say it depends on your definition Dmcq (talk) 12:48, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

The word 'computer' itself does not imply Turing completeness. Merely something which can compute. Analogue computers have existed since the ancient Greeks. Babbage designed both the difference engine and subsequently the analytical engine, the latter unfortunately never constructed in his lifetime. The difference engine was a functional digital mechanical computer, but not Turing complete. The analytical engine would have been Turing complete and fully programmable and would have been the first fully programmable, mechanical digital computer. It is therefore important to be more specific when making claims about early computers. In the Colossus computer Wiki article there is also the claim "Colossus is thus regarded as the world's first programmable, electronic, digital computer." However it was constructed 2 years after the Z3 which could make the same claim.Lkingscott (talk) 09:06, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

No. of relays in Z3 implementation

According to the TU-Berlin Z3 web page, the machine had 600 relays in its FPU plus 1600 in its "constant & variable memory" (actually, 1408 for the 64 words of 22 bits, and some read/write access logic I guess, making the total roughly 1600 gates). Hence, I get 600 + 1600 = 2200. --Wernher 23:26, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This is wrong. I have his book (reference given in article). It reads: "600 Relais im Rechenwerk, 1400 Relais im Speicherwerk"). Which is 2000. I think we should give the book more trust than the TU-Berlin webpage—until we know more :). I have thus changed the article. --Ligulem 12:16, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Operational use

Does anyone have any authoritative sources that describe what the Z3 was intended for and whether it was put into operational use? It would be good to have this information in the article. Adrian Robson 16:10, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK was Zuse an civil engineer, and his main goal was to create a device to lift of him the burden of calculating boring statics. --195.82.76.228 14:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Was Z3 part of war effort?

The ENIAC article says: "The Z3, Colossus and ENIAC were developed independently and in secret as part of each country's war effort in World War II. The Z3 was destroyed by Allied bombing of Berlin in 1944.... For these reasons, histories of computing formerly mentioned only ENIAC and the Harvard Mark I from this period."

Certainly Colossus was part of the war effort but is this true for the Z3? The Z3 article is rather sparse and doesn't mention it. But the Konrad Zuse article says: "Zuse never received the official support that computer pioneers in Allied countries, such as Alan Turing, managed to get. The telephone relays used in his machines were largely collected from discarded stock. A request by his co-worker Helmut Schreyer to the war-time government for federal funding for an electronic successor to the Z3 was denied as 'strategically unimportant'."

Does anyone know which article is correct? Was the Z3 part of the war effort or not? As for "histories of computing (mentioning) only ENIAC and the Harvard Mark I", maybe this statement is just based on English language histories. Is it certain that German language histories of computing mentioned only ENIAC and the Harvard Mark I? Adrian Robson 16:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

While building the Z3 Zuse received financial support from the federal DVL (Deutschen Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt, i.e. German Experimentation-Institution for Aviation), who desired automating their extensive calculations. But this restricted official financing does not make the Z3 a German wartime effort. The Zuse article is right. Christian Storm 18:00, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Is it correct to use the word "federal" when talking about the German Government (of the Nazi era)? Sounds a bit too American to my ears. 213.169.27.166 22:45, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

"Federal" is used in the sense of "referring to the central government", meaning that it was a nationwide organization and not part of a "Gau" etc. When using the word federal there's obviously no bijective mapping possible. Christian Storm 15:41, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I wrote that dodgy paragraph you've all kindly fixed. Mea culpa, it was sloppy phrasing on my part. I've just had another go at the whole paragraph, to try to cover the concerns here plus the original concerns - which were that the ENIAC article was getting junk from people saying "My history book says ENIAC was first." Please do check that my current version isn't as lousy as the first! Cheers, JackyR | Talk 01:19, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems that this needs further exploration here, and then some sort of elaboration in the article. I would find it surprising that the development or usage of the Z3 had nothing to do with the the war raging at the time. Regardless, who built it, why they built it, and what it was actually used for (if different from the original intent), needs to be discussed in the actual article. 67.174.202.231 (talk) 05:23, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect information about Babbage

This section about Charles Babbage is incorrect: 'A working model was not made in his lifetime, presumably because its decimal design was much more complicated than the binary Z3.'

The decimal design was no more complicated for a mechanical computer than binary would have been. Babbage considered using binary but decided that it would be inefficient and with not enough of a benefit in speed to be worthwhile.

This bit is also incorrect: 'If Babbage's friend Ada Lovelace was the first theoretical programmer, writing programs for a machine that did not exist, then Zuse was the first practical programmer.'

Lovelace wasn't the first programmer (as nice as that myth is) - Babbage was.

My sources for this are a paper by Allan Bromley called 'Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, 1838' and a book called 'Charles Babbage: Pioneer of the Computer' by Anthony Hyman (though I can probably produce more if you need it...) 144.138.81.100 12:47, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Presentation

The "On this day..." on the main page, and the article, note (without citation) that "on May 12 [of 1941], [the Z3] was successfully presented to an audience of scientists in Berlin". I'm interested in this. Which scientists were present, where was the unveiling made, and what capabilities were demonstrated? Was there any press of the presentation? Did news of the demonstration reach beyond Germany? Does any documentary evidence exist of the presentation (writings, photographs)? Robert K S 17:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Chronology

How can Claude Shannon have introduced the idea the article implies the Z1 used in 1937 if Zuse started building and probably finished the Z1 in 1936? Looks to me as if he introduced the idea and Mr. Shannon merely got the same idea one year later? Then, I don't see his work as worth mentioning? --77.57.201.49 (talk) 08:44, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Destruction Date

Can someone research it's date of destruction? This page says it was in 1943. The ENIAC page says 1941. Encyclopedia Britannica says April 5, 1945 [1] and the Zuse article says 1944 (see above discussion). Or maybe we should just be generic and say "destroyed in World War II" and cite both Zuse and EB? --Aaronp808 (talk) 04:27, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Conditional Branch

The first sentence of the summary suggests the Z3 was the "world's first working programmable, fully automatic computing machine" because of it's conditional branching. Yet, the last section (Relation to Turing machine) seems to directly contradict ... "there was no conditional branch instruction". I've no idea whether it had or did not have "conditional branching", except to point out that the text from different sections seems self contradictory. R Comroe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.223.251.138 (talk) 16:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

what the statement is saying is that many people consider conditional branching is one of the characteristics of a programmable computer and the Z3 had all the characteristics except that one. Conditional branching was in Zuse's original plans in 1936 but just wasn't important enough to implement for the Z3. The hardware microcode by the way did have conditional branching. The closest the user programming had to branching was stopping on exception conditions, the design of which was very advanced indeed. Dmcq (talk) 15:00, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

If you read [[talk::Turing completeness]] I prove conclusively that you can emulate a "SUBLEQ" machine on a computer that has no conditional branch (I include working C source code for such an emulators - which self-evidently has no conditionals in it!). So long as a program can loop - even totally unconditionally - and even if it could only loop by wrapping it's program counter from the last instruction in memory back to the first - then it can emulate SUBLEQ - which is in itself known to be turing complete. Since Church-Turing thesis says that anything that can emulate a turing engine is turing complete - then we can definitively say that the Z3 was indeed turing complete without the need for conditional branching. Trouble is - finding a reference for my [[WP::NOR]] problem. SteveBaker (talk) 21:53, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Thats not true! (Z3 use)

The Z3 was used by the German Aircraft Research Institute to perform statistical analyses of wing flutter in aircraft design. Dr. Joseph Jennissen, member of the Reich Air Ministry acted as the federal supervisor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.133.54.132 (talk) 14:03, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

How do you know? The link for the first statement is dead.

Zuse himself mentions Dr. Jenissen (with one 'n') and Herr Seibt as members of the Reichsluftfahrtministerium who supervised orders to Zuse's company by this institution (link).

Thus both statements need (more comprehensive) sources. 217.236.200.244 (talk) 11:44, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

It certainly wasn't used on everyday basis:

75 years ago: Computer Z3 is demonstrated

dewiki Z3#Operation

Konrad Zuse (search for 1941) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.25.210.104 (talk) 23:36, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

References

Z3 in science fiction literature

The main page of this article would be improved if there were a discussion of the Z3 in science fiction literature.

Has this computer ever been mentioned in science fiction? Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 03:35, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

It would have to contribute in a significant way to a story, not just be incidental. I haven't heard of such a use and I don't think not having a science fiction link is much of a loss. Dmcq (talk) 12:52, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I think a section on potential uses that the Z3 might have been put to, had it gained official backing, might be interesting and worthwhile. Funding for research is always a problem and examples of missed opportunities are good ammunition when making a case for finance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.68.76.108 (talk) 15:25, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Production figures?

How many Z3s were made? Manufacturing lends credence. 171.66.161.158 (talk) 22:24, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Just the one I believe. What do you mean by credence here? Dmcq (talk) 22:42, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

@Guy Harris, apropos direct link to Turing-completeness

Quote from where you pointed: "This has two added advantages: first, if an article is written later about the more specific subject ..., fewer links will need to be changed to accommodate the new article; second, it indicates that the article is wanted."
Both do not apply here - there is an article about "Turing completeness" and neither will there be a further article about "Turing-complete" nor is it wantend.
Further a direct link does not hamper the reader's understanding.
If you understand MOS:NOPIPE in a different way which makes sense -- are you able to phrase how? 87.159.108.164 (talk) 10:00, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I understand that it's completely irrelevant whether they apply - those aren't the reasons for not using piping, those are additional advantages to not using piping. That's what the word "added" means there.

The main reason is that it's simpler ("write simply <tt>[[A Dirge for Sabis]]</tt>") and the MediaWiki engine does the work for you ("and let the system handle the rest.").

The point is that there's nothing inherently unclean about a link that happens to be a redirect. The work done to eliminate them is wasted effort. Guy Harris (talk) 17:31, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

"Simple" is not mentioned in that paragraph -- and in no way did inserting a direct link (once) imply any complexity -- and it was not a huge effort, too -- furthermore the MediaWiki engine does the work again and again; thus -- "let the system handle the rest" makes sense, if an extra article can be expected or is wanted or if the direct link could confuse the reader. Cheers. 87.145.111.8 (talk) 10:31, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The MediaWiki engine does a lot of work again and again, including displaying [[A|B]] as just "B" and making it a link to the page for "A"; I really don't think processing redirects is such a burden that there's any good reason whatsoever to throw in piping to avoid them.

As for how huge an effort it is to pipe the redirect away, any attempt to divide the editing work put into piping the redirect away by the editing work involved in not piping the redirect away results in a zero divide error, so.... Guy Harris (talk) 10:59, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Z3 requiring rewiring?

The claim that it required rewiring cites a Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry that, I think, too narrowly categorizes "program-controlled computers". The other references for the Z3 speak of it being controlled by programs stored on punched celluloid film. I've sent the person I think is the author of that entry an e-mail asking about this, and suggesting that the entry be changed to more broadly categorize "program-controlled computers". Guy Harris (talk) 00:59, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I already removed the false claim regarding rewiring. People who like to learn how the Z3 works may get a private demonstration by Horst Zuse at Technik Museum Berlin on the Z3 replica he created. Even the Z1 (fully mechanical and located nearby the Z3 replica) was using program code in punched 35mm film. The Z3 was build with relais because the the Z1 had instructions that could jam the whole mechanics and only Konrad Zuse did know how to fix this by knocking at the right places. Now that Konrad Zuse is dead, the laser cutted but otherwise original Z1 replica is no longer usable. Schily (talk) 17:15, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Z3 doesn't required rewiring, but wasn't fully automatic either: program code was on film, but not (initial) constants - that were only added to Z4 (computer) in 1947.

See:

• "Die Z3 von Konrad Zuse im Deutschen Museum". 23 October 2013. (in German, enable subtitle translation) - from 2:52, Z3 in action
• Konrad Zuse’s Legacy: The Architecture of the Z1 and Z3: TABLE 1 INSTRUCTION SET AND OPCODES OF THE Z3 and Programming Model, pp. 7-8. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.25.210.104 (talk • contribs) 15:33, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

"The Deutsches museum" vs. "Deutsches museum"

1. Just because "das Deutsches Museum" is grammatically incorrect in German, that doesn't mean "the Deutsches Museum" is necessarily incorrect in English. There are no definite or indefinite articles in Russian, but we still refer to "the Hermitage Museum" or "the State Hermitage", not just "Hermitage Museum" or "State Hermitage" in English. Using one language's grammatical rules for a name in another language isn't always appropriate. "Deutsches Museum" is somewhat of an opaque token for the museum in English.

2. There is a long note about this on the Deutsches Museum page:

The English language expression "the Deutsches Museum" is a troublesome translation, because it uses a declension that is grammatically inappropriate in both English (which normally lacks such declensions) and German (which would use a different declension). In German, the adjective deutsch, if preceded by the neutral definite article "das" (one of the equivalents of the English language word "the"), is declined by the addition of the suffix "e", and not the suffix "es", which is used only if the definite article is omitted (ie Das Deutsche Museum or Deutsches Museum, but not Das Deutsches Museum). However, the English language expression "the Deutsches Museum" is so commonly used, including by the Museum itself, that it is long accepted as the conventional English translation of Das Deutsche Museum.

If you consider "the Deutsches Museum" incorrect on this page, you presumably also consider it incorrect on Deutsches Museum, and should therefore fix it, and update the note in question to indicate why what it says is incorrect. Guy Harris (talk) 17:51, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

English is a language derived from the lower saxonian, so English is related to German - in contrary to indogermanic languages vs. Russian.

"the Deutsches Museum" sounds really strange besides the grammatical problems. If I ask Google to translate: in dem "Deutschen Museum", I get: in the "German Museum". Maybe this is an idea to develop a better wording. What do you think about "in Deutsches Museum"?

BTW: do you have a pointer where the museum uses the term "at Deutsches Museum"? Schily (talk) 09:54, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

English, German, and Russian are all related, as they're all descended from Proto-Indo-European. English and German are closer to each other than to Russian, but English has been much changed courtesy of the Norman French influence; for example, it's lost almost all grammatical grammar (inanimate objects are all neuter) and almost all declensions.

And, yes, the museum in question says "Welcome to the Deutsches Museum" on their English-language Information page and says "the Deutsches Museum" in several places on the English-language "About us" page. Guy Harris (talk) 17:36, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for reminding that most languages are derived from the indo-german base.

BTW: I just asked a US person from the other side of the corridor who lives in Germany since 30 years and he came up with this link with a collection of German -> English translations. He believes that something like "is shown at the German Museum in Munic" is the best way to do it. Schily (talk) 10:21, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

(Indo-European - Proto-Germanic was one of the languages that split off from Proto-Indo-European, but there were other branches as well, such as Proto-Balto-Slavic, whence Slavic languages such as Russian came, and Proto-Italic, whence that language that helped push English in some non-Germanic directions came, albeit with some Germanic and Celtic contributions, and Proto-Indo-Aryan, descendants of which are spoken as a first language by at least 300 million people. Of course, over 1.2 billion people speak Sino-Tibetan languages, and 200-300 million speak Afroasiatic languages, and so on, so a large number of people speak non-Indo-European languages as their primary languages.) Guy Harris (talk) 17:59, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Although I'm a native German speaker, I do not think "the Deutsches Museum" sounds strange. I consider "Deutsches Museum" as a proper noun in English, thus an article is appropriate, and it should not be translated as "German Museum" (or "German museum")? For me it's the same case as, e.g., the Kleiner Feldberg that should not be translated as "little Feldberg" or "little Feldmountain" or "little field mountain". --Cyfal (talk) 22:10, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

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