Systems

Zuse Z3

Early Computer

Citation Formats

General Reference

Computing Atlas. "Zuse Z3." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://computing.interactiveatlas.org/systems/zuse-z3.

APA Style

Computing Atlas. (n.d.). Zuse Z3. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://computing.interactiveatlas.org/systems/zuse-z3

BibTeX

@misc{computingatlas-zuse-z3,
  author = {Computing Atlas},
  title = {Zuse Z3},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://computing.interactiveatlas.org/systems/zuse-z3},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

An electromechanical, relay-based computer built by Konrad Zuse in Germany, first presented on 12 May 1941, using a 22-bit word and binary floating-point arithmetic. Built with government support through the Reich Air Ministry, the original machine was destroyed in an Allied bombing raid on Berlin on 21 December 1943; a working replica was built in 1961 and is displayed at the Deutsches Museum. It remained little known outside Germany for decades, so the Anglo-American ENIAC/Colossus/Atanasoff Berry Computer priority disputes this atlas already records rarely accounted for it.

Facts

Disputed

Significance

Shown to be theoretically Turing-complete, within its memory limits, by Raul Rojas in 1998, fifty-five years after the physical machine itself was destroyed; the Z3's obscurity in its own time, not any technical shortfall, is the main reason it rarely features in the ENIAC/Colossus/Atanasoff Berry Computer priority debates. 1

Turing-completeness was never demonstrated on the physical Z3, only argued retrospectively in 1998 against its documented design; the machine also lacked conditional branching, which Rojas's argument works around rather than contradicts.

Year

1941 1

Cross-Tradition Connections

Held Differently

ENIAC

Not a rival claim resolved in either machine's favor: the Z3 (1941, relay-based, Germany) and ENIAC (1945, electronic, USA) were independent, mutually unaware developments, and the Z3's obscurity in the West is why it rarely enters the same priority conversation this atlas's ENIAC trail already records.

Source Wikipedia: Z3 (computer)