Z1 (computer)
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The Z1 was a motor-driven mechanical computer designed by German inventor 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.
Replica of the Z1 in the German Museum of Technology in Berlin
Diagrams from Zuse's May 1936 patent for a binary switching element using a mechanism of flat sliding rods. The Z1 was based on such elements.
Inside view of the Z1
Numeric input
Konrad Zuse
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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 is regarded by some as the inventor and father of the modern computer.
Konrad Zuse in 1992
Zuse Z1 replica in the German Museum of Technology in Berlin
Plaque commemorating Zuse's work, attached to the ruin of Methfesselstraße 7, Berlin
Statue of Zuse in Bad Hersfeld