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Konrad Zuse (1910-1995, Germany): Microcomputer
While some inventions immortalise the name of their creators for all prosperity - like the famous luminaries in this collection of outstanding inventors - other creative minds remain outside of the spotlight.
This is certainly the case with the creator of the microcomputer, Konrad Zuse. Shunned by the history books, the German electrical engineer single-handedly laid the foundations of modern computer technology in 1941 with his Z3 model.
When invention calls, it's hard to resist. In the 1930s, Konrad Zuse had a safe job at an aeroplane factory in Northern Germany, but his eyes were set on higher goals. Zuse wanted to be an inventor, and with this in mind, he dropped out and went his own way.
Working from home - his only support coming from his parents and close friends - he pursued the ambitious goal he had set for himself: building a computing machine from scratch.
Since Zuse was building his new calculation machine from the ground up, he had to blaze his own trail in solving the technical challenges along the way. Entirely ignorant of the internal workings of other calculation machines at the time, Zuse set forth in a new direction: Where other machines relied on a decimal counting system realised by rotating components, Zuse chose a binary system implemented by metallic plates that could move in only one direction. And that binary system - composed of 1s and 0s - is what computers rely on to this day.
After the success of his first mechanical calculation machine - the Z1 was finished in 1938 - Zuse set out to up the ante. Together with electronic engineer Helmut Schreyer, Zuse started incorporating vacuum tubes into what would become the first electronic calculation machine, the Z2.
The next logical step was to create a machine that not only performed static calculations, but which could be programmed for customised processes by its users. These users, Zuse decided with what now sounds like prophetic vision, would be "small and medium-sized businesses." This programmable machine was the Z3, introduced in 1941.
That same year, Zuse founded his own company - the first business in the world set up with the aim of manufacturing computers. But success was brief, as WWII brought ruin and occupation to Germany. However, the Z4 model resurfaced in 1950 at the Technical University of Zurich, Switzerland, where it became the first commercial computer in operation - several months before the first UNIVAC in the United States.
Despite life-long difficulties in attaining patents for his inventions, Zuse considered himself the true inventor of the computer, an opinion backed by many experts in the field. By using the binary system as the basis for his programmable machines, Zuse chose the road we're still walking along today.