On Thu, 24 Sep 2020 12:54:10 +1200, Peter Reutemann quoted:
'The Z4, which was built in 1945 ...'
“Z” for “Zuse” <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse>. He also created his own programming language, “Plankalkül”, which was designed around direct bit manipulation <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankalk%C3%BCl>. Though it seems like no actual compiler/assembler was ever implemented for it. Also it didn’t help that the Allies forbade the Germans from continuing to build computers for some time after WWII was over. Some more details about the Z4: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z4_(computer)>. It was taken from Berlin to Göttingen in February 1945 to stop it from falling into the hands of the Soviets, and continued in use for a few years after. Based on the specs in that article, it consumed about 4Wh (14.4kJ) of electricity per floating-point computation.