The reconstruction of Konrad Zuse´s Z3

Author

Rojas, Raul ; Darius, F. ; Göktekin, Cüneyt ; Heyne, Georg

Author_Institution

Dept. of Math. & Comput. Sci., Freie Univ. Berlin, Germany

Volume

27

Issue

3

fYear

2005

Firstpage

23

Lastpage

32

Abstract

Konrad Zuse´s Z3, built in Berlin from 1938 to 1941 was destroyed during World War II. The reconstruction project started in 1994. A functional replica was built and unveiled at a conference commemorating the 60th anniversary of the public presentation of the original machine in 2001. The reconstruction project includes several Java simulations of components of the whole machine and a 3D functional simulation of the Z3 and its user console. This article is our account of our journey into history, about how we carried out the reconstruction, and why it is important that historians of computing, and computer scientists, pursue such projects.

Keywords

Java; computer architecture; history; 3D functional simulation; Java simulation; Konrad Zuse Z3 architecture; history; reconstruction project; Application software; Arithmetic; Computational modeling; Java; Logic gates; Military computing; Prototypes; Registers; Relays; Switches; Konrad Zuse; Z3 computer; Z3 reconstruction; history of computing; history of computing in Germany;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Annals of the History of Computing, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1058-6180

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/MAHC.2005.48

Filename

1498716