Z4

Year: 1944

Designed by the legendary German engineer Konrad Zuse, the Z4 was a follow-up to its pioneering
predecessor, the Z3 computer he built in 1941 (the world’s first programmable, automatic computing
machine). The Z4 used about 4,000 watts of power and ran at approximately 40 Hz. It had 64 32-bit
registers, the equivalent of 512 bytes of memory. One addition took 0.4 seconds.

Z4 Computer

Above: The Z4 computer, as seen in a German museum (in Munich).

Colossus
Year: 1944

Two generations of Colossus, the Mark 1 and Mark 2, were used by British codebreakers to decrypt
coded German messages at the end of WW2. It processed 5,000 characters per second (it could process
faster, but then the paper tapes holding the data would break). The existence of Colossus and other
British codebreaking machines remained secret until the 1970s out of fear that widespread knowledge
would encourage more efficient encryption algorithms.

Colossus

Above, top: The Colossus in its heyday. Note the punched paper tape running on the right side. Above,
bottom: A reconstructed Colossus.
ENIAC

Year: 1946

When the ENIAC was announced in 1946 the press immediately started calling it a “Giant Brain”. ENIAC
was the world’s first general-purpose electronic, digital computer and is probably the most famous of the
ones included in this article. It weighed 27 tons. Among other things, ENIAC was used for calculations to
create the hydrogen bomb. Programming the machine could take weeks, since after the program had
been figured out on paper you first had to manipulate the various switches and cables that controlled
the programming and then follow that with verification and debugging.

ENIAC

Above, top: The ENIAC in all its glory. Above, bottom: Old-school programming?

Whirlwind

Year: 1951

The Whirlwind was the first computer to use video displays for output. The first version had 512 bytes of
main memory and could do 20,000 instructions per second, although a switch to a different kind of
memory later doubled its performance and made it the fastest computer of its time.

Whirlwind

Above, top left: The Whirlwind. Above, top right: Closeup of the circuitry. Above, bottom: The control
room.