User:Z3~enwiki

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I intend to improve Wikipedia entries relating to Konrad Zuse's Z3, the world's first functional program-controlled computer, completed in 1941. I am also going to address how the Z3 relates to work by others, such as:

1. The first non-programmable computer built by Wilhelm Schickard in 1623

2. The first design of a program-controlled computer due to Charles Babbage in the mid 1800s (this design could not be realized back then, presumably because it was decimal and complicated, not binary and simple like the Z3)

3. The ENIAC completed 4 years after the Z3 (ENIAC used tubes to implement switches, Z3 used relays; ENIAC was decimal, Z3 was binary; programming ENIAC meant rewiring it; today's computers are much more like Z3)

4. The Manchester Baby of 1948, the world's first computer with internally stored programs (Z3 required an external tape), implementing a concept frequently attributed to John von Neumann and colleagues, although a patent application of Konrad Zuse already mentioned it much earlier in 1936.