Meaning "Experimental Model 1" in German (VersuchsModell 1), Zuse renamed the V1 to Z1 after World War II ended to differentiate it from Germany's V-1 rockets. A Z1 Replica Although the original Z1 was destroyed in World War II, this recreated model resides in the German Museum of Technology in Berlin.

The Z1 was the first in a series of computers that Zuse designed. Its original name was "V1" for Versuchsmodell 1 (meaning Experimental Model 1). After WW2, it was renamed "Z1" to differentiate it from the flying bombs designed by Robert Lusser. The Z2 and Z3 were follow-ups based on many of the same ideas as the Z1.

The Z1 was a 22-bit floating point value adder and subtracter, with some control logic to make it capable of more complex operations such as multiplication (by repeated additions) and division (by repeated subtractions).

The Z1 was capable of performing the four basic arithmetic operations using floating-point numbers. Instructions were read from a punched tape. A program consisted of a sequence of arithmetic operations, interspersed with memory store and load instructions, occasionally interrupted by input and output operations.