> • John Nagle (Animats) has commented a few times about how, contrary to the "high culture" story of the evolution of computers (Turing, von Neumann etc), the gradual evolution of "calculators" was itself leading up to computers (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10636154). Something similar appears to have happened with Babbage, where he started with a simple calculating device and, thinking about it more deeply, single-handedly came up with a Turing-complete design and was writing programs for it.
Konrad Zuse was a civil engineer who was annoyed by doing manual numerical calculations and so started to build his computers (22-bit floating point machines). He too saw how many engineer-man-centuries these machines could save and approached the Nazi government which of course blundered that and thought computers were irrelevant.
> He too saw how many engineer-man-centuries these machines could save and approached the Nazi government which of course blundered that and thought computers were irrelevant.
Zuse built "computers" and process control for military R&D and production. He wasn't a major concern or priority at a high level, but given resources "thought irrelevant" projects wouldn't have gotten.
Konrad Zuse was a civil engineer who was annoyed by doing manual numerical calculations and so started to build his computers (22-bit floating point machines). He too saw how many engineer-man-centuries these machines could save and approached the Nazi government which of course blundered that and thought computers were irrelevant.