We owe it to
ourselves as current
participants, and
to future generations
as our beneficiaries,
to document
and explain how
the information
revolution came to be.
high-quality video and subsequently
transcribed and edited. It is critical
that we collect the first-person stories
of our pioneers while we still can.
Educational Activities. Expanding the
public presence of the museum is the
current highest priority. This includes:
Exhibits: There are about a dozen ˲
physical and online exhibits currently
on display, such as “The Silicon Engine,” “Mastering the Game: A History
of Computer Chess,” “The Babbage Engine,” and “Visible Storage”. The physical exhibits are open to the public four
days a week. A major 25,000 square
foot signature exhibition on computing history is scheduled to open later
this year, in conjunction with a comprehensive Web-based version that will
also provide digitized access to related
objects from the deep collection.
PHotoGraPH Courtesy oF tHe HeInZ nIxdorF MuseuM
Programs: A public lecture series ˲
that attracts over 300 attendees is held
each month and is available afterward
on the Web. A black-tie Fellows Awards
ceremony to honor outstanding computing pioneers is held yearly. An annual award-winning magazine (CORE)
is published as well as commemorative booklets that highlight important
computing milestones.
Restorations: Historical computer ˲
systems, both hardware and software,
are selectively restored and demonstrated. A restoration of an IBM 1620
and a DEC PDP- 1 have been completed; restorations currently under way
include an IBM 1401 system (complete
with card equipment, printer, and tape
drives), and the world’s first disk drive,
the RAMAC 350. The restored systems
are on exhibit and are demonstrated
by trained volunteer docents.
Research Activities. The CHM wishes
to become an important part of the academic research community on computing history, but it has only taken
small steps so far: organizing topical
conferences and workshops, collecting
oral histories, and publishing papers
and articles.
The CHM scope (and collection) is
international, but the museum’s physical presence is in the heart of Silicon
Valley in California. The CHM owns a
120,000 square foot modern building
on seven acres—lots of free parking
is a real asset here!—in a prominent
location in Mountain View. The CHM
also owns a 25,000 square foot warehouse 20 minutes away, where most of
the 90% of the collection that is not on
exhibit at any particular time is stored
in climate-controlled conditions and
is available to researchers.
The Computer History Museum is
a work in progress. We like to think of
ourselves as a startup with a 30-year
history. We welcome the opportunity
to work with people and organizations
that resonate with our mission and our
goals. For more information, see www.
computerhistory.org.
Len Shustek ( shustek@computerhistory.org) is the
chairman of the Computer History Museum.
Copyright held by author.
The Heinz nixdorf museumsforum
Norbert Ryksa
The Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum
(HNF; www.hnf.de) in Paderborn, Germany, is the world’s largest computer
museum. The museum, which is also
an established conference center,
showcases the history of information
technology—beginning with cuneiform writing and going right through
to the latest developments in robotics,
artificial intelligence, and ubiquitous
computing.
The multimedia journey through
time takes visitors through 5,000 years
of history, starting with the origins of
numbers and writing in Mesopotamia
in 3000 B.C. and covering the entire cultural history of writing, calculating, and
communications. Alongside typewriters and calculating machines, the exhibition shows punched card systems, a
fully functioning automatic telephone
exchange system from the 1950s, components from the earliest computer
(which filled a whole room), over 700
pocket calculators, and the first PCs.
Work environments from different centuries are also staged in the exhibition.
The exhibition highlights include
fully functioning replicas of the Leibniz calculating machine and the Hol-lerith tabulating machine, a Thomas
Arithmometer dating from 1850, a
Jacquard loom operated with punched
tape, components of the ENIAC from
