<computer> The third computer designed and built by {Konrad Zuse} and the first digital computer to successfully run real programs. The computer was ready in 1941, five years before ENIAC. Zuse began his work on program-driven calculating machines in 1935. His two predessors of the Z3, the Z1 and Z2, were unsuccessful mechanical calculating machines. The Z3 was delivered to the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt (German Experimental Department of Aeronautics) in Berlin and was used for deciphering coded messages. A 1960 reconstruction of the Z3 is in the Deutsche Museum in Munich. The Z3 used about 2600 relays of the kind used in telecommunications. Zuse wrote and implemented the language Plankalkül on the Z3. Programs were punched into cinefilm. Zuse built some more computers after World War II, including the Z3's successor, the Z4, which was set up at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Of the potential rival claimants to the title of first programmable computer, Babbage (UK, c1840) planned but was not able to build a decimal, programmable machine. Atanasoff's ABC, completed in 1942 was a special purpose calculator, like those of Pascal (1640) and Leibniz (1670). Eckert and Mauchly's ENIAC (US), as originally released in 1946, was programmable only by manual rewiring or, in 1948, with switches. None of these machines was freely programmable. Neither was Turing et al.'s Colossus (UK, 1943-45). Aiken's MARK I (1944) was programmable but still decimal, without separation of storage and control. [Features? Where was it designed? Contemporaries?] http://cs.tu-berlin.de/Z3zuse. http://epemag.com/zuse. (2003-10-01)

Z3 Max Schultz was one of four Type 1934 destroyers built for the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) during the mid-1930s. Completed in 1937, two years before the start of World War II, the ship spent most of her time training although she did participate in the occupation of Memel in early 1939.

/frob'nits/, plural "frobnitzem" /frob'nit-zm/ or "frobni" /frob'ni:/ (TMRC) An unspecified physical object, a widget. Also refers to electronic black boxes. This rare form is usually abbreviated to "frotz", or more commonly to frob. Also used are "frobnule" (/frob'n[y]ool/) and "frobule" (/frob'yool/). Starting perhaps in 1979, "frobozz" /fr*-boz'/ (plural: "frobbotzim" /fr*-bot'zm/) has also become very popular, largely through its exposure as a name via Zork. These variants can also be applied to nonphysical objects, such as data structures. Pete Samson, compiler of the original TMRC lexicon, adds,q "Under the TMRC (railway) layout were many storage boxes, managed (in 1958) by David R. Sawyer. Several had fanciful designations written on them, such as "Frobnitz Coil Oil". Perhaps DRS intended Frobnitz to be a proper name, but the name was quickly taken for the thing". This was almost certainly the origin of the term. [Jargon File] (1994-12-16)