16 Facts About Helmut Schreyer

Helmut Schreyer is mostly known for his work on the Z3, the world's first programmable computer.

Helmut Schreyer was the son of the minister Paul Schreyer and Martha.

When his father started to work in a parish in Mosbach, the young Schreyer went to a school there.

Helmut Schreyer started to study electronic and telecommunications engineering at the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg in 1934.

Helmut Schreyer got to know Konrad Zuse at the company AV Motiv in 1935.

In 1938 Helmut Schreyer earned his diploma and then worked as a graduate assistant for Prof Wilhelm Stablein.

In 1939, when World War II started, Helmut Schreyer applied for exemption from the drafting for military service, on the basis that his work was important for the war efforts of Nazi Germany.

Helmut Schreyer submitted to the German government a plan to build a large electronic computer.

Helmut Schreyer then worked on the accelerometer for the V-2-rocket.

Helmut Schreyer worked on technology to convert the radar signal into an audio signal which the pilot of a fighter aircraft might recognize.

Zuse was a schoolmate and co-worker of Helmut Schreyer, who advised Zuse on relays.

Helmut Schreyer had theorized on the use of electrical circuit technology to implement computers, but while he first considered it practically infeasible, he subsequently could not get the necessary funding for his theory.

Up to 1942 Helmut Schreyer himself built an experimental model of a computer using 100 vacuum tubes, which was lost at the end of World War II.

Helmut Schreyer planned to build a computer memory for 1000 words in 1943, that was to contain several thousand electron tubes, but the war put an end to all larger plans.

Helmut Schreyer had fled to Vienna in the final days of World War II, where he went to the Brazilian Embassy, and he was issued with a Brazilian passport.

Helmut Schreyer then fled to Brazil, where he was offered work at the Army's Technical School.