Konrad Zuse

Konrad Zuse (1910 to 1995) was a German civil engineer, inventor and pioneering computer scientist, born in Berlin and educated in civil engineering at the Technische Hochschule Berlin. Frustrated by the long hand calculations of structural engineering, he began building calculating machines in his parents' flat in 1935. His Z1 of 1936 was a mechanical binary calculator, and the Z3, which became operational in May 1941, is regarded as the first working programmable, program-controlled computer. He also built the S2, considered the first process control computer, founded one of the earliest computer companies and produced the Z4, the first commercial computer. Between 1943 and 1945 he designed Plankalkül, the first high-level programming language, and in 1969 he proposed the idea of a computation-based universe in his book Rechnender Raum. His work was little known in Britain and the United States until after the war.