Communications - January 2010

1945, the on-board computer from the Gemini space capsule, the Apple 1, a LEGO Turing machine, and Europe’s largest collection of cipher machines. One of the current attractions at HNF is the world’s most famous automaton: Wolfgang von Kempelen’s chess playing machine, the Chess Turk, which dates from the 18th century.

The exhibition was updated in 2004 with the addition of new themes such as robotics and artificial intelligence, mobile communications, and digitization. The new galleries present the latest information technology themes in an interactive, multimedia exhibit. Visitors can try their skills at old and new computer games, test advanced man-machine interfaces, and experiment with the latest applications and products from research and industry in the showroom. A multimedia scenario presents 150 pioneers of computer history from 1940–2009. Along with conventional museum formats, HNF has chosen to use a range of interactive multimedia applications and videos: approximately 100 special interactive multimedia application developments and video installations introduce visitors to the functions of the objects that are on display as well as to the life stories of famous historical figures.

Themes relating to the present and the future are also presented in HNF’s Software Theatre, which offers virtual tours through cyberspace. Visitors can

test the latest computer applications and software developments at the Digital Workbench. The games booths offer educational games and games of skill and strategy for guests to try out.

In 2005, the HNF marked the 40th anniversary of Moore’s Law by presenting a huge illuminated “chip pagoda” demonstrating the continuous minimization of the chip surface area over the years in 20 stages. The individual levels of the pagoda consist of illuminated plexiglass panes and the display is lit by some 3,500 LEDs.

In 2007, the HNF opened the world’s first gallery on software and computer science (informatics). A black cube is decorated on its “shell” with early instances of computer programs and 13 small “miracle chambers of computer science.” These provide concrete three-dimensional examples of ostensibly abstract topics: Russian nested dolls are used to explain the method of recursion, while a tin of English luncheon meat demonstrates the origins of the term “spam,” and toy robots illustrate an important software application area.

HNF has compiled a varied educational museum program to motivate children and young people to take an active approach to the exhibits and their history. At workshops children can, for example, build robots, encrypt messages or learn how to ‘make’ paper. Teachers and pupils are given numerous ideas for study content. Besides a

guided tour of the permanent exhibition, special tours can be booked on such topics as arithmetic, writing, inventors and entrepreneurs, women’s work in information technology, and cryptology.

Special HNF events focus on people in the information age. Numerous presentations, discussions, conferences and workshops deal with current concerns in today’s information society and information technology. A quarterly newsletter on HNF activities is published in two languages and distributed free of charge.

Alongside the permanent exhibition, the museum has two additional areas that cater to an ambitious special exhibition program, such as focusing on historical slot machines or the world of computer games.

The HNF’s “Computer.Medicine” exhibition, designed to provide a broad overview of the computer’s importance in present-day medicine and featuring many exhibits on loan from abroad, proved to be the most successful exhibition in the history of the HNF, attracting more than 93,000 visitors. The exhibition is currently being shown in Vienna (until mid-April) on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Austrian Technology Museum.

Until the end of February, the HNF in cooperation with the MIT Museum is presenting the exhibition “Codes and Clowns: Claude Shannon, The Juggling Scientist,” which will showcase Claude Shannon’s scientific work as well as his famous toy collection. The selection of Shannon’s inventions range from the highly practical to the downright useless and the presentation sets Shannon’s inventions in the context of his biography and the history of information technology, shedding light on the relevant scientific relationships and implications. The exhibits are on loan from the MIT Museum in Boston, MA, the first time they have been on display a different location.

The Forum part of the HNF organizes over 800 events every year, ranging from scientific congresses to popular lecture series, senior’s IT workshops, and business fairs.