z3
     
         the third computer designed and built by konrad
        zuse and the first computer to successfully run real
        programs.  the computer was ready in 1941, five years before
        eniac.
     
        zuse began his work on program-driven calculating machines in
        1935.  his two predessors of the z3, the z1 and z2, were
        unsuccessful mechanical calculating machines.  the z3 was
        delivered to the deutsche versuchsanstalt fur luftfahrt
        german experimental department of aeronautics in berlin and
        was used for deciphering coded messages.  in 1998, there may
        still be models of z3 in museums where?.
     
        the z3 used about 2600 relays of the kind used in
        telecommunications.  zuse wrote and implemented the language
        plankalkul on the z3.  programs were punched into cinefilm.
     
        zuse built some more computers after world war ii, including
        the z3's successor, the z4, which was set up at eth zurich,
        switzerland.
     
        of the potential rival claimants to the title of first
        programmable computer, babbage uk, c1840 planned but was
        not able to build a decimal, programmable machine.
        atanasoff's abc, completed in 1942, and eckert and
        mauchly's eniac us, 1945/46 were special purpose
        calculators, like those of pascal 1640 and leibniz
        1670.  none of these machines was freely programmable.
        neither was turing et al.'s colossus uk, 1943-45.
        aiken's mark i 1944 was programmable but still decimal,
        without separation of storage and control.
     
        features?  where was it designed?  contemporaries?
     
        http://www.cs.tu-berlin.de/~zuse.
     
        http://www.epemag.com/zuse.
     
        2002-07-28
     
     
see also:
konrad zuse eniac plankalkul babbage decimal atanasoff 
abc pascal leibniz turing colossus 
aiken mark i lt;http://www.cs.tu-berlin.de/~zusegt; lt;http://www.epemag.com/zusegt;