Usage After WWII
In 1949 the Swiss mathematician Eduard Stiefel, after coming back from a stay in the USA where he inspected American computers, visited Zuse and the Z4. When he formulated a differential equation for Zuse, who immediately programmed the Z4 to solve it, Stiefel decided to acquire the computer for his institution in Switzerland, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich).
It was delivered to ETH Zurich in September 1950. In 1954, the Z4 was transferred to the Institut Franco-Allemand des Recherches de St. Louis (Franco-German Institute of Research) in France, where it was in use until 1959. Today, the Z4 is on display in the Deutsches Museum in Munich.
The Z4 inspired the ETH to build its own computer (mainly by A. Speiser and E. Stiefel), which was called ERMETH, an acronym for German: Elektronische Rechenmaschine ETH ("Electronic Computing Machine ETH").
| “ | At least Zürich has an interesting nightlife with the rattling of the Z4, even if it is only modest. | ” |
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—Konrad Zuse |
In 1950/1951 the Z4 was the only working digital computer in continental Europe, and the second digital computer in the world to be sold, beating the Ferranti Mark 1 by five months and the UNIVAC I by ten months, but in turn being beaten by the BINAC (although that never worked at the customer's site). Other computers, all numbered with a leading Z, were built by Zuse and his company. Notable are the Z11, which was sold to the optics industry and to universities, and the Z22, the first computer with a memory based on magnetic storage.
The Z4 was used for calculations for work on the Grande Dixence Dam.
Read more about this topic: Z4 (computer)
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