Mailüfterl is a

nickname A nickname, in some circumstances also known as a sobriquet, or informally a "moniker", is an informal substitute for the proper name of a person, place, or thing, used to express affection, playfulness, contempt, or a particular character trait ...

for the Austrian ''Binär dezimaler Volltransistor-Rechenautomat'' (binary-decimal fully transistorized computing automaton), an early transistorized

computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...

. Other early transistorized computers included

TRADIC The TRADIC (for TRAnsistor DIgital Computer or TRansistorized Airborne DIgital Computer) was the first transistorized computer in the USA, completed in 1954. The computer was built by Jean Howard Felker of Bell Labs for the United States Air ...

Harwell CADET The Harwell CADET was the first fully transistorised computer in Europe, and may have been the first fully transistorised computer in the world. The electronics division of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, UK built the H ...

and

TX-0 The TX-0, for ''Transistorized Experimental computer zero'', but affectionately referred to as tixo (pronounced "tix oh"), was an early fully transistorized computer and contained a then-huge 64Kilo-, K of 18-bit words of magnetic-core memory. C ...

. Mailüfterl was built from May 1956 to May 1958 at the

Vienna University of Technology TU Wien () is a public research university in Vienna, Austria. The university's teaching and research are focused on engineering, computer science, and natural sciences. It currently has about 28,100 students (29% women), eight faculties, and ...

Heinz Zemanek Heinz Zemanek (actually Heinrich Josef Zemanek) (1 January 1920 – 16 July 2014) was an Austrian computer pioneer who led the development, from 1954 to 1958, of one of the first complete transistorised computers on the European continent. The co ...

. Heinz Zemanek had come to an agreement with

Konrad Zuse Konrad Ernst Otto Zuse (; ; 22 June 1910 – 18 December 1995) was a German civil engineer, List of pioneers in computer science, pioneering computer scientist, inventor and businessman. His greatest achievement was the world's first programm ...

, whose company Zuse KG would finance the work of Rudolf Bodo, who helped build the Mailüfterl, also that all circuit diagrams of the Z22 were supplied to Bodo and Zemanek, and that after the Mailüfterl project Bodo should work for the Zuse KG to help build the transistorized Z23. The first program, computation of the prime 5,073,548,261, was executed in May 1958. Completion of the software continued until 1961. The nickname was coined by Zemanek: ''Even if it cannot match the rapid calculation speed of American models called "

Whirlwind A whirlwind is a phenomenon in which a vortex of wind (a vertically oriented rotating column of air) forms due to instabilities and turbulence created by heating and flow ( current) gradients. Whirlwinds can vary in size and last from a cou ...

" or "

Typhoon A typhoon is a tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere and which produces sustained hurricane-force winds of at least . This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, accounting for a ...

", it will be enough for a "Wiener Mailüfterl"'' (Viennese May breeze). The computer has 3,000

transistor A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch electrical signals and electric power, power. It is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semicondu ...

s, 5,000

diode A diode is a two-Terminal (electronics), terminal electronic component that conducts electric current primarily in One-way traffic, one direction (asymmetric electrical conductance, conductance). It has low (ideally zero) Electrical resistance ...

s, 1,000 assembly platelets, 100,000 solder joints, 15,000

resistor A resistor is a passive two-terminal electronic component that implements electrical resistance as a circuit element. In electronic circuits, resistors are used to reduce current flow, adjust signal levels, to divide voltages, bias active e ...

s, 5,000

capacitor In electrical engineering, a capacitor is a device that stores electrical energy by accumulating electric charges on two closely spaced surfaces that are insulated from each other. The capacitor was originally known as the condenser, a term st ...

s and about of wire. It is wide, high, and deep. The machine was comparable in calculating power to what were then considered small

vacuum-tube computer A vacuum-tube computer, now termed a first-generation computer, is a computer that uses vacuum tubes for logic circuitry. While the history of mechanical aids to computation goes back centuries, if not millennia, the history of vacuum tube compu ...

s. Calculations and representation of values worked using the

BCD BCD may refer to: Computing * Binary-coded decimal, a representation of decimal digits in binary ** BCD (character encoding), a 6-bit superset of binary-coded decimal derived from the binary encoding of the same name * Boot Configuration Data, th ...

system. Zemanek later said about his project that it was a " semi-illegal" undertaking of an assistant professor, which he and a group of students realized without official authorization, and hence without financial support, from the university. In 1954 he traveled to

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...

in the Netherlands, where he asked for a donation

in kind The term in kind (or in-kind) generally refers to goods, services, and transactions not involving money or not measured in monetary terms. It is a part of many spheres, mainly economics, finance, but also politics, work career, food, health and o ...

. Transistors, invented seven years before and just beginning to be available commercially, were very difficult to obtain in quantity at any price, but Zemanek received a commitment for 1,000 rather slow hearing-aid transistors, and Philips finally shipped a total of 4,000 high-quality transistors to the Austrians.

Sources

External links

Oral history interview with Heinz Zemanek

Charles Babbage Institute The IT History Society (ITHS) is an organization that supports the history and scholarship of information technology by encouraging, fostering, and facilitating archival and historical research. Formerly known as the Charles Babbage Foundation, ...

, University of Minnesota. Zemanek discusses his engineering education and work in radar technology during World War II. Zemanek then focuses on the development of computers in Austria: magnetic drums and magnetic memory, the MAILUFTERL computer, LOGALGOL and other compilers, the University of Vienna, where Zemanek worked on his computer, the subsequent sponsorship of the project by International Business Machines Europe, and

ALGOL ALGOL (; short for "Algorithmic Language") is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in 1958. ALGOL heavily influenced many other languages and was the standard method for algorithm description used by the ...

and

PL/I PL/I (Programming Language One, pronounced and sometimes written PL/1) is a procedural, imperative computer programming language initially developed by IBM. It is designed for scientific, engineering, business and system programming. It has b ...

language standards development. * * *
Mailüfterl emulator in JavaScript
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mailufterl Transistorized computers 1950s computers One-of-a-kind computers

Sources

See also

External links