Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
Zuse originally believed that he could complete the development of
the Z4 in 12 to 18 months, but in fact it took more than four years to
build. The Z4 ended up being much smaller than was originally planned.
Zuse intended to have, in addition to a mechanical memory with a ca-
pacity of 1,024 words, several card readers and punches and various fea-
tures to facilitate the programming of the computer. Construction of
the machine started well but it was not long before the war imposed its
delays. The procurement of staff and materials became increasingly diffi-
cult and, around 1943, the Berlin blitz began, with heavy bombing raids
on an almost daily basis. Several times Zuse and his friends had to move
the machine to a new location, eventually finding refuge in Gottingen,
giving its first demonstration on 28 April 1945, just ten days before the
German surrender.
Zuse's computers could solve different types of problems, not only
those from the field of logic. During the years 1943-1945 Zuse de-
veloped a programming language called
Plankalkul
(plan calculus), de-
signed to help in the programming of solutions to combinatorial
problems.
17
For Zuse, Chess was the archetype of a combinatorial problem: “I
even went as far as learning to play Chess in order to try to formulate the
rules of the game in terms of logical calculus.” [5] His monograph on the
Plankalkul
includes a 44-page chapter devoted to programming Chess.
Zuse optimistically believed that his machines would eventually be able
to play the game better than humans, but his design for a Chess pro-
gram was never implemented and the Plankalkul was not published until
1972. “I remember mentioning to friends back in 1938 that the World
Chess Champion would be beaten by a computer in 50 years time.” In
this prediction Zuse was not so very far out, but “The importance of
my Chess program, as an example of applied logic, was simply ignored.”
Thus, Zuse's contribution to the early history of AI came on two distinct
fronts. By being the first to build a fully functional electrical digital com-
puter he also became one of the first two people to solve logic problems
using an electrical machine (Benjamin Burack being the other, earlier in-
ventor). And Zuse was the very first to design a program to play Chess,
preceding Turing's hand simulation by seven years.
18
17
A combinatorial problem is one that grows dramatically in difficulty, just as the number of
Chess positions to be analyzed grows dramatically as a program looks further and further ahead in
the game.
18
See the section “From Patzer to World Champion” in Chapter 3.
