It’s not very often that I start a post with the oft-used phrase “On this day…”, but this Monday morning shall be an exception.

On this day in 1941 a subtle evolution began its course that wound its way through the decades to enable us to be where we are at this moment.

Thanks to the German engineer, Konrad Zuse, his brainchild became the world’s first functional program-controlled Turing-complete computer, and while his first commercial computer, the Z4, was not leased until 1950, it can be ventured that the Z3 started a technological revolution.

Furnished with 2,000 relays, a clock frequency of ~5-10 Hz, and a word length of 22 bits, the Z3 made its debut on 12 May, 1941, at the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt (the German Laboratory for Aviation).

Although the original Z3 met its demise but three years later during an Allied bombardment of Berlin, in the 1960s a replica was constructed by Zuse KG and remains on permanent display at the Deutsches Museum.

Admittedly, this is probably not the most nifty of post subjects, but still – if it had not been for Zuse and his break through, who knows where the blogosphere would now be?