Helmut Hoelzer's Fully Electronic Analog Computer used in the German V2 (A4) rockets

Most likely, world's first airborne programmable analog computer

Based on Hoelzer's talk of about 1990, at the Museum für Verkehr und Technik, now known as: Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin

Mainly German language, PDF

Most illustrations originate from Hoelzer's dissertation of 1946, at the TH-Darmstadt

Later in the US, Dr. Hoelzer was head of the: Computation Laboratory of the George C. Marschall Space Flight Center

Synopsis, based on James E. Tomayko's article in: Annals of the History of Computing, Volume 7, No. 3,  July 1985, pp. 227 - 240

 

A fully electronic general-purpose analog computer was designed by Helmut Hoelzer, a German electrical engineer and remote-controlled guidance specialist. He and an assistant built the device in 1941 in Peenemunde, Germany, where they were working as part of Werner von Braun’s long-range rocket development team. The computer was based on an electronic integrator and differentiator conceived by Hoelzer in 1935 and first applied to the guidance system of the A-4 rocket (Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister dubbed, V 2, AOB). This computer is significant in the history not only of analog computation but also of the formulation of simulation techniques. It contributed to a system for rocket development that resulted in vehicles capable of reaching the moon.

Hoelzer gave it the German title: 50 Jahre Analog Computer

Keywords:

Mischgerät, Differentiator, Integrator, Multiplier, Integrator mit Rückkopplung und Modulatorverstärker, Differentiator mit Rückkopplung und Modulatorverstärker, Zur theoretische Behandlung des Differentiators, Zur theoretischen Behandlung des Integrators, photos of Mischgerät, Kurssteuerungssystems, Schwingtisch, Werner von Braun, Peenemünde, block diagram of Mischgerät, Diagramm für die Lösung der Differentialgleichung ... mit Doppelintegrator, Division und Multiplikator, Schaltschema zur Bildung des Ausdrucks ... , Multiplikation,  Division mittels selbstabgleichender Brücke, Schema für die Lösung eines Systems von Differential Gleichungen zweiter Ordnung, Quadratwurzeln, Funktion von Funktionen, Modell zur Untersuchung der Fern- und Selbststeuerung, Prinzipschaltbild der Dreiachssteuerung, Rollachse, Hochachse seitliche Abweichung, Querachse, Lagekreisel (gyro) A-Achse, E-Achse, D-Achse, three axis gyro output fed to Mischgerät and servos of V2, ...  

 

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