Title
The Early Development of Digital Computing In Central Europe by Friedrich L. BauerCatalog Number
102695472Type
Moving imageDescription
The First International Research Conference on the History of Computing was a milestone in the history of computing, drawing a global elite of computer pioneers from the first generation of electronic digital computing. Most talks are approximately 45 minutes in duration and feature a lecture with a brief question and answer period afterwards.This lecture surveys the very early computing scene in the early post-war period in Europe, with emphasis on German and Swiss computing pioneers Konrad Zuse and Heinz Rutishauser. While Zuse worked in near total isolation, Rutishauser visited the United States at Harvard and Princeton, as so many Europeans of the time had, to study the state of the art in computing. Rutishauser was a research associate at ETH Zürich recently where he worked together with Ambros Speiser on developing ERMETH, the first Swiss computer. Bauer goes into some detail about the overall architecture of these early computers, including how they were programmed, and in particular in describing Zuse’s Plankalkül, a pioneering programming language designed for engineering purposes by Konrad Zuse between 1942 and 1945.
This lecture’s transcript was included in the edited volume from the conference, viz. Bauer, Friedrich, L., “Between Zuse and Rutishauser – The Early Development of Digital Computing in Central Europe,” in Metropolis, N., and Howlett, J., Rota, Gian-Carlo, A History of Computing in the Twentieth Century, New York: Academic Press, 1980, pp. 505 – 524.
Date
1976-06-11Credits
Bauer, Friedrich LudwigParticipants
| Bauer, Friedrich Ludwig, Speaker |
Place of Publication
Los Alamos, NM, USIdentifying Numbers
| Other number | Reel 11 | Original tape numbering |
| Other number | Reel 12 | Original tape numbering |