Konrad Zuse is one of the great pioneers of the computer age. He created thefirst fully automated, program controlled, freely programmable computer using binary floating-point calculation. It was operational in 1941. He built his first machines in Berlin during the Second World War, with bombs falling all around, and after the war he built up a company that was taken over by Siemens in 1967. Zuse was an inventor in the traditional style, full of phantastic ideas, but also gifted with a powerful analytical mind. Single-handedly, he developed one of the first programming languages, the Plan Calculus, including features copied only decades later in other languages. He wrote numerousbooks and articles and won many honors and awards. This is his autobiography, written in an engagingly lively and pleasant style, full of anecdotes, reminiscences, and philosophical asides. It traces his life from his childhood in East Prussia, through tense wartime experiences and hard times building up his business after the war, to a ripe old age andwell-earned celebrity.

This book describes the historical development of the architectures of the first computers built by the German inventor Konrad Zuse in Berlin between 1936 and 1945. Zuse's machines are historically important because they anticipated many features of modern computers. Specifically, these include the separation of processor and memory, the ability to compute with floating-point numbers, a hardware architecture based on microprogramming of the instruction set, and a layered design with a high-level programming language on top. In fact, Zuse's early computers are closer to modern computers than the Harvard Mark I or ENIAC, two other contenders for the title of "world's first computer." The theoretical program first conceived by Zuse in 1936/37 was fulfilled with a series of machines built before and during World War II: the Z1, Z2, Z3, and Z4. Separate chapters deal with the architecture of each computer, culminating in the description of Plankalkül, the first proposal for a high-level programming language. Students of the sciences and practitioners of computer science should have no trouble following the material. The concise introductory summary sets the reader on the historical path to retrace this remarkable intellectual adventure.

This history of computing focuses not on chronology (what came first and who deserves credit for it) but on the actual architectures of the first machines that made electronic computing a practical reality. The book covers computers built in the United States, Germany, England, and Japan. It makes clear that similar concepts were often pursued simultaneously and that the early researchers explored many architectures beyond the von Neumann architecture that eventually became canonical. The contributors include not only historians but also engineers and computer pioneers. An introductory chapter describes the elements of computer architecture and explains why "being first" is even less interesting for computers than for other areas of technology. The essays contain a remarkable amount of new material, even on well-known machines, and several describe reconstructions of the historic machines. These investigations are of more than simply historical interest, for architectures designed to solve specific problems in the past may suggest new approaches to similar problems in today's machines. Contributors Titiimaea F. Ala'ilima, Lin Ping Ang, William Aspray, Friedrich L. Bauer, Andreas Brennecke, Chris P. Burton, Martin Campbell-Kelly, Paul Ceruzzi, I. Bernard Cohen, John Gustafson, Wilhelm Hopmann, Harry D. Huskey, Friedrich W. Kistermann, Thomas Lange, Michael S. Mahoney, R. B. E. Napper, Seiichi Okoma, Hartmut Petzold, Raúl Rojas, Anthony E. Sale, Robert W. Seidel, Ambros P. Speiser, Frank H. Sumner, James F. Tau, Jan Van der Spiegel, Eiiti Wada, Michael R. Williams

This practical guide offers an accessible introduction to the principles of MRI physics. Each chapter explains the why and how behind MRI physics. Readers will understand how altering MRI parameters will have many different consequences for image quality and the speed in which images are generated. Practical topics, selected for their value to clinical practice, include progressive changes in key MRI parameters, imaging time, and signal to noise ratio. A wealth of high quality illustrations, complemented by concise text, enables readers to gain a thorough understanding of the subject without requiring prior in-depth knowledge.

This book provides an overview of the confluence of ideas in Turing’s era and work and examines the impact of his work on mathematical logic and theoretical computer science. It combines contributions by well-known scientists on the history and philosophy of computability theory as well as on generalised Turing computability. By looking at the roots and at the philosophical and technical influence of Turing’s work, it is possible to gather new perspectives and new research topics which might be considered as a continuation of Turing’s working ideas well into the 21st century.