machine had been destroyed by the
bombs of World War II). Representing
one of the highlights of the Deutsches
Museum, the Z3 is still demonstrated
to visitors. Located near the Dehomag/
IBM plugboard programmed punched
card tabulating machine D11, the pioneer machines of Konrad Zuse also
mark the middle of the exhibition in
a technohistorical sense. Zuses’s machines separate the historical mathematical instruments, the mechanical
calculators, and sequence controlled
historical automatons in the first part
of the exhibit from the spectrum of the
big, middle, and small real computers
in the second part of the exhibit.
One main issue is the separation of
analog and digital calculating instruments and machines. The contrast is
highlighted by red text tables for all
explanations on analog technology,
and by blue tables for all texts on digital technology. One of the outstanding
early analog calculating instruments
is the exceptionally big astrolabium,
made by Erasmus Habermel in 1588. A
showcase with different modern slide
rulers, mainly used by engineers until
the 1970s, is a logical follow-on. This
part of the exhibition also includes a
big and unique collection of mechanical planimeters, and some components of several big mechanical and
electronic analog computers.
The blue-marked part with digital instruments and calculators begins with
a small collection of different abaci. A
historical sequence of selected mechanical digital desk calculators starts with
Wilhelm Schickard’s reconstructed machine, and is continued by replicas of the
machines of Blaise Pascal and Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibniz, all designed during
the 17th century. Particularly valuable
is an original calculator, made by Anton
Braun and Philippe Vayringe and presumably completed around 1735. Beside these historical unique specimens
one can view the broad spectrum of the
mechanical calculators, industrially
produced in series, beginning with C.X
Thomas and ending with the sophisticated Friden-Model SRW 10. Many of
the mechanical calculators were still
used in the 1970s. A special cabinet on
the cryptology is presented as a part of
the digital calculating exhibit—here
not with digits but with letters. Visitors
find several coding machines, includ-
the fundamental idea
involves presenting
the newest
“masterpieces” as
a logical and
historical extension
of their precursors.
ing two Enigmas. Some historical sequence controlled automatons are also
shown as a part of the prehistory of the
computer, one of them the famous mechanical trumpeter, made by Friedrich
Kaufmann in 1810.
In the second half of the exhibition
with real computers, the gigantic central processing unit of the UNIVAC I
Factronic with its mercury delay line
memory is particularly representative. Visually it is overshadowed a bit
the so-called PERM computer (
Pro-grammgesteuerte Elektronische Rech-enanlage München) with its magnetic
drum memory, which has been built
at the Technical University Munich
as a scientific project financed by the
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(German Research Foundation) from
1950 until 1956. The UNIVAC computer, which was used at the Battelle-Institute at Frankfurt/Main between
1956 and 1963, represents the start of
industrially produced computers in
the U.S., whereas the PERM represents
the beginning of research and development of electronic computers at
German universities. Also interesting
are some original parts of the U.S. pioneer computers ILLIAC and ORACLE.
Several computers, developed and produced by the then West German industry are included in the gallery. With the
exception of the vacuum tube machine
Z22, produced by the Zuse KG in 1958,
they all were designed on the base of
discrete semiconductor elements.
Also presented is a Cray I from
1983, which until the end of Cold War
in 1990 had its completeness checked
for the COCOM-office (Coordinating
Committee on Multilateral Export Con-
trols) by an employee of the company.
Several office computers produced by
the companies Nixdorf, Kienzle, and
Siemag/Philips, as well as several very
early personal computers and elec-
tronic pocket computers are displayed
at the end of the exhibition.
hartmut Petzold ( h.petzold@deutsches-museum.de)
is the former curator for mathematical instruments,
compilers, and time measurement at the deutsches
museum in munich, germany.
u.s. national museum
of american history
David K. Allison
The U.S. National Museum of American History has collected and preserves
more than three million artifacts that
document the history of the American
people. These range from the original
“Star-Spangled Banner” and Abraham
Lincoln’s top hat to Alexander Bell’s
telephone prototypes. The museum’s
collections form a mosaic of American
life and comprise the nation’s greatest
single collection of historical objects.
The Division of Information Technology and Communications is one of
eight curatorial divisions in the museum. Collections in the Division include
computing, mathematics, electricity,
printing, graphic arts, photography,
and numismatics. The Computing Collection has approximately 2,000 objects
in the following categories: supercomputers and components; mainframe
computers and components; minicomputers and components; microcom-puters and components; electronic calculators; analog computers; computer