The Computer - My Life

1 Ancestors and parents — Early childhood memories — School days — Metropolis — Abitur.- 2 Studies (not without detours and by-ways) and general studies — First inventions — The Akademischer Verein Motiv — Student life between science and politics.- 3 The early years of the computer (and a digression on its prehistory) — Colleagues remember — From mechanics to electromechanics — Schreyer’s electronic computing machine — First outside contacts — Thoughts on the future.- 4 Outbreak of the war and (first) call-up — Structural engineer in aircraft construction — The Z2 and Z3 — Second call-up — Zuse Ingenieurbüro und Apparatebau, Berlin — The first process computer.- 5 Origins of the Z4 — News from the United States — Attempt at a Ph.D. dissertation — Computing machine for logic operations — Final months of the war in Berlin — The evacuation — Z4 completed in Göttingen — Final war days in the Allgäu.- 6 End of the war — Refugees in Hinterstein — The Plankalkül — The computing universe — Automation and self-reproducing systems — A logarithmic computing machine — Computer development in Germany and the United States — Move to Hopferau near Füssen — The mill of the Patent Office.- 7 The Zuse-Ingenieurbüro, Hopferau bei Füssen — First business partners: IBM and Remington Rand — The first pipelining design — Founding of ZUSE KG in Neukirchen — The Z4 in the ETH in Zurich — The computer in Europe: taking stock — Lost opportunities — The first German contract: the Z5.- 8 The partners leave — Computing machine for land use zoning — Electronics gains acceptance — First funds from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft — Losing one’s way (and possibly a lost opportunity) — The arrayprocessor — Custom work for geodesists — The Graphomat Z64 — Growth and crisis of ZUSE KG — The end.- 9 Free for science (again) — Honors — A look to the future.- Appendices.- 1. From Forms to Program Control.- 2. Construction of Devices.- 3. On Computer Architecture.- 4. On the Plan Calculus.- 5. Lecture on the Occasion of the Award of the Honorary Doctorate by the Technical University of Berlin (Extract).- 6. The Computer Did Not Fall from Heaven.- Notes.- References.- Name Index.- Computer Index.