Micro Code

Michael's blog about teaching, hardware, software and the things in between

Computer History

April 05, 2023 — Michael Engel

As some of my regular readers (if these exist...) may already know, I have a certain fondness for old computers and their history.

In February, members of the German Computer Society's SIG on Computer History met at the University of Bonn. We had a number of very interesting talks from different angles of computer history - preservation and museums, a film project, the restoration process of Zuse's Z1 mechanical computer, and program listings in 1980's home computer magazines. I contributed my report on reproducing CS research from the 1990s.

A big thank you to Stefan Höltgen for organizing the event!

One highlight was the visit to the Arithmeum, the University's computer museum. In addition to an impressive collection of mechanical computing machines (including an Enigma!), the museum also features an exhibition of electronic computers (tours on demand). I thought some pictures might be interesting...

An original Enigma cipher device

Lots of working computers from the 1980s

IBM 5100 APL computer

Apple Lisa 2/Macintosh XL

NeXT Cube

Commodore SX64

Tags: GI, InfoHist, Computergeschichte, Bonn, Arithmeum