Helmut Schreyer

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Helmut Theodor Schreyer (born July 4, 1912 in Selben , today the city of Delitzsch ; † December 12, 1984 in São Paulo ) was a German telecommunications specialist , inventor and professor at the Technical University of the Brazilian Army in Rio de Janeiro .

Along with Konrad Zuse, Schreyer is one of the most important German inventors in the development of computer technology .

Life

Helmut Schreyer was a son of pastor Paul Schreyer and his wife Martha. After his father took up a pastor's position in Mosbach in northern Baden in 1915 , the young Schreyer attended elementary school from 1919 and then the secondary school there until he graduated from high school in 1933. On May 1, 1933, Schreyer joined the NSDAP ( membership number 2.544.065). He worked for a year as an intern in the AEG training workshop in Berlin . In 1934 Schreyer began studying electrical engineering and communications engineering at the TH in Berlin-Charlottenburg . In 1937 he met Konrad Zuse in the student union Akademischer Verein Motiv , which became the beginning of a decades-long collaboration and a lifelong friendship.

While he was working on the Z1 , he passed his diploma examination in 1938 and was hired by Professor Wilhelm Stäblein as a research assistant at the chair for telephone and telegraph technology . He also worked at the Institute for Vibration Research headed by Stäblein (before 1933 and after 1945: Heinrich Hertz Institute ), which was one of the thirty or so scientific institutes of the four-year plan authority and therefore had to conduct armaments research . While working with Zuse, he recognized early on the possibility of replacing the relay circuits he was using with tube circuits . In 1938 he and Konrad Zuse demonstrated a corresponding test circuit at the TH Berlin and made the proposal to build an electronic calculator on this basis . However, this proposal was referred to there as “fantasy” , so Schreyer and Zuse found little support for their project.

During the Second World War , Schreyer dealt "as an assistant with war-important work, including an accelerometer for the V2 rocket , detectors for unexploded bombs and converting radar analog values ​​into acoustic signals for fighter planes" . In 1941 he received his doctorate at the Institute for Vibration Research at the TH Berlin on the subject of the tube relay and its circuit technology . Work on the Z3 was completed in 1942, and the test model can be described as the first computer in the world.

Schreyer continued to work with electron tubes in digital computing systems. A corresponding test facility was lost due to the effects of the war. In doing so, however, he created the basis for later generations of electronic computing technology.

In the post-war period, Schreyer could neither work on his developments nor in telecommunications technology. For a time he managed a cinema for the American occupation forces in Erlangen. In 1949 he emigrated to Brazil. There he was appointed head of the telecommunications laboratory of the Brazilian Post and professor at the Technical University of the Brazilian Army in Rio de Janeiro.

Research and development holdings

  • Accelerometer for the V2
  • Detector for unexploded bombs
  • Converter for radar analog values ​​into acoustic signals for fighter aircraft

Fonts

  • The tube relay and its circuit technology . Technische Hochschule Berlin, dissertation 1941. ( [1] (PDF; 573 kB) without images in the "Konrad Zuse Internet Archive")
  • Practical radio technology: An introduction to the basics of radio circuits . CF Müller, Karlsruhe 1949.
  • Envio Imediato Circuitos de Comutação. Oficina do IME, Rio de Janeiro 1966, 202 pp. (Portuguese)
  • The development of the experimental model of an electronic calculating machine. Mosbach 1977, Konrad Zuse Internet Archive, online file , ( PDF ; 950 kB)

Patents

  • Patent DE937170 : Circuit arrangement of an electrical combination storage unit . Registered on June 11, 1943 , published on December 29, 1955 , applicant: Dr.-Ing. Helmut Schreyer, Rio de Janeiro-Tijuca, inventor: Dr.-Ing. Helmut Schreyer, Rio de Janeiro-Tijuca. ‌

literature

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ^ A b c Raúl Rojas : Helmut Schreyer: a German career , Telepolis , January 24, 2010
  2. ↑ Konrad Zuse, Der Computer: Mein Lebenswerk, Springer-Verlag 1984, p. 97
  3. ↑ Helmut Schreyer: "The development of the test model of an electronic calculating machine." (PDF; 973 kB) Mosbach 1977, p. 14
personal data
SURNAME Schreyer, Helmut
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schreyer, Helmut Theodor (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German inventor, collaborator in the invention of the first functional computer
DATE OF BIRTH 4th July 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH The same
DATE OF DEATH December 12, 1984
Place of death São Paulo