As someone who has had the chance to personally know Konrad Zuse’s son (Horst Zuse), and who has as a main research interest the connections between nature and computation, it has been captivating to read about Konrad Zuse’s life, including his first ideas as a computer pioneer and inventor of the first binary floating-point computer. The book, a reprint of the 1993 hardcover edition, tells the parallel story leading to the invention of the modern computer in Germany, told by Konrad Zuse himself. Unaware of Turing’s work in the UK (during World War II), Zuse took a different path than Turing but surprisingly arrived at similar ideas from similar motivations: automation, constructing a mechanical brain, and even thinking of the concept of general-purpose computation and computer programming epitomized by his “calculating plan.”

But the parallelisms with Turing don’t stop there. Zuse, like Turing, also became interested in chess and artificial intelligence (AI). Zuse’s views, however, took a more practical route, anticipating some of von Neumann’s ideas, and actually founding the first computing manufacturing company and building the first digital mechanical computers. The book tells the story of an inventor and an entrepreneur. It is refreshing because it allows one to see things outside of the box, beyond the more traditional story, so that he or she can better appreciate key aspects of computing and computation.

Furthermore, the book tells the story of a father, a hard worker, and a recognized inventor, including pictures and plenty of anecdotes. It contains diary entries, with facsimiles of his own handwriting that include the decisive ideas that drove him into the computing business, including the patents that he would later sell to IBM. The book is probably the only reliable source about Konrad Zuse’s life and contributions to the world.