The first data centre to run a digital computer in Germany may have been a backyard workshop in Berlin in 1941. It was here that Konrad Zuse set up his famous Zuse V3 computer to calculate the vibration behaviour of aeroplanes and drones. Having previously installed his mechanical V1 computer in his parents’ living room, the new environment provided at least basic technical support. As the V3 was probably an assemblage of various parts available to Zuse in wartime Germany, only he was able to maintain it — an important service of data centers. (Zuse 1968: 60) Self-built punched tape readers and key punchers shared the room with film tapes used for data transactions. But was this actually a ‘data center’? Tracking the proliferation of computers in the second half of the 20th Century, the talk will analyze the development of computer centres and their techno-environmental assemblages over time. What constituted a computer center, and where it was located, changed significantly in the post-war decades. A dataset comprising more than 3,500 records will be presented. It enables a GIS-based digital-historical analysis of digitalisation and its environmental consequences.
In case of questions, please contact info@cryocultures.org.