Links

This is more or less a random list of Links related to historic computers and actual preservation. The categories have been filld in a random and nonlinear way :)

• (More or Less) Real Museums
• Virtuell Museums and other Resources
• Magazines
• Societies
• Events
• Some Remarks

If you know any additional address to be added in here, please notify us.

(More or Less) Real Museums

ACONIT (French)

The Association por un CONservattoire de l'Informatique et de Télématique is a society located in Grenoble, very active in the preservation of historic gear for many years.

Haus zur Geschichte der IBM-Datenverarbeitung

Active and retired employees of IBM Deutschland maintain this very unique collection of old data processing equipment. On roundabout 800 square meters (~9000 sqft) a real lot of great devices, from Hollerith until today is shown. A visit is only possible on appointment.
The Mercedes and Porsche museums are close.

Museum Heinz Nixdorf Museumsforum

Eventualy the world's most reknown computer museum.

Deutsche Museum

Eventualy the #1 technological museum all over the globe since almost 100 years - and still worth visiting.

Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin (German)

Worth an extended visit, even without the working reproduction of the first Computer of all, the Zuse Z1.

Technisches Museum Wien

One of the few museums worldwide to hold a benchmark against the Deutsches Museum. The absolute highlight is of course the Mailüfterl, the eternal rival to the SIEMENS 2002 in the race for the first full transistorized computer of all times.

Computer museum of the University of Amsterdam

A collection within the university museum. Especially some unusual gear like a Holborn System 9100.

Computer museum of the department of computer science of the University of Stuttgart (German)

Small but interesting Museum with several exhibitions.
Address: Breitwiesenstr. 20/22; 70565 Stuttgart

Computer museum "WAALSDORP" (Dutch)

Great for CDC fans.

Museum of the University of Karlsruhe (German)

No recomendation for people who like to preserve machines intact, but still interesting to see details of technology.

Peter's Sun 3 Zoo

A very specialized collection may be found in Kaiserslautern. Nothing but Sun 3 machines. At the moment some 20 units in working condition. Even the webpages are served by one of Museum pices<&A>!

Museum of the FH Kiel (German)

The web pages may be still a project to be finished, but the collection is quite remarkable. Most notable the Zuse machines (Z11, Z22, Z25 and Z64) are worth more than just a virtual visit. The museum is located at the FH in 24149 Kiel.

Itzehoer Computermuseum

Far up in the north, close to the polar region (:) thers's a small but wothwhile museum at the IZET Itzehoe (Serious, Itzehoe is located close to Hamburg). Well, small is a relative term. From PDP 8i to 11/45 and MicroVAX to 11/750 you'll find a lot of DEC-Maniacs dream computers, acomplished by a reasonable sized collection of I/O devices, terminals and printers. Compared to this the micros are only a small addition. The museum offers lots of hardware in a refreshing simple setting, open daily Monday thru Friday from 8am to 5pm. The museum is located at:
Itzehoer Computermuseum im IZET
Fraunhoferstr. 3
25524 Itzehoe Tel. 04821/778-0

RWTH Aachen (German)

The University of Aachen has a chair of technological history, and a small museum (just I can't find the link right now).

Computer Cabinett Göttingen

The collection is located at the Fachhochschule Göttingen für Physik- Meß- und Feinwerktechnik, but maintained by a public society (!), open for everybodies membership.

Computer Culture Museum (German

Not a real museum at the moment, but extraordinary public activities.

Katalog der Rechentechnischen Sammlung des Instituts für Mathematik und Informatik Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald (German)

A vast collection with some real unusual pieces.

Bletchley Park (English)

Colossus - What else? Quite a lot!

The Computer Conservation Society (English)

Regarding their mission, the CCS is one of the oldest societies around.

The Philips Museum in Eindhofen (Dutch)

Due the long history of Philips, the Museum is way more than just a 'Company Museum'.

The PC Museum of Solothurn (Swizerland)

A quite wide collection of computerartefacts arranged in an unusual location. A must if you're visiting the area.

The Technium29 of Kelkheim-Hornau (German)

Founded by Heribert Müller (formaly the Technikmuseum Main Taunus), this fine colletion is now available to the general public. Conveniant located near Frankfurt a stopover could should be no problem. Open every other Sunday 2-4pm or on apointment. Address:
Am Flachsland 29
65779 Kelkheim-Hornau

The Oldenburg Computer Museum

'Till Christmas (23.12.2008) the OCM presents a great display of common home computers during the 80s. More than 50 machines are on display, 20 of them in a work setup, ready for demonstartion. The showroom is open weekdays (Mon-Fri) 17.00-21.00 at
Neue Straße 2
26122 Oldenburg

Virtuell Museums and other Resources

Gabys Computer Museum

Gaby Chaudrys Computer Museum is a nice presentation of her treasury. But Gaby is not only collecting, but also an active CP/M evangelist.

The Jim Austin Computer Collection

A large collection including some of the most unusual machines. Lot's of individual inforamtion has been added. Definitly not your average list of MHz and Kilobytes. Enjoy it.

Chr.Zahns Online Museum (German)

A lot of interesting computers - just presented in a fumble graphics design - still worth a look.

Stefan Walgenbachs HCM

A lot of computers and even more pictures. Realy well structured (Just not exaclty classics compat - but if you like frames and popup windows... :).

Bolo's Computer Museum (French)

A remarkable collection, slowly converting to a real museum.

Jens Olufs Museum (German)

A small collection with lots of pictures and descriptions centered around video games.

8-Bit Nostalgia

Nice collection and _lots_ of Atari Links.

House for Retired and Aged Computers (English/Dutch)

A source for mini computer fans and DECaholics.

The Virtuelles Oschatzer Computer Museum (German)

Fischers Computer Museum (German)

One of the many, never finished pages. Please note the huge (600x756) picture of a Microprofessors.

Xaver Geigers Museum

Especialy nice: The Z80 inside Sticker :)

Boris Jakubaschks Homecomputer, a Virtual Museum (German)

Nice display of several systems.

Rune's Computermuseum

Note the ABC-80.

The Belgian Microcomputer Museum (English/Dutch)

Note the large Link Page

Boris Klugs Computer Museum

A lot of stuff and even more Apple.

Old Bits Computer- und Viedeospielemuseum in Anhalt

Nice display of the remarkable (and huge) collection of Frank Salomon.

Bernd´s Atari Museum (German)

A simple and well structures list of the most known Atari systemes - only for frame capable browsers.

An Atari 800 as Webserver ?

Using http://atari800.kl.net/ you may fetch a HTML page directly from a real Atari 800 machine. Cute, isn't it ?

Computerszene der DDR (German)

A detailed overview of East German Systems.

robotron-net.de (German)

Another overview of DDR Systems.

Informatik in der DDR (German)

Two extremely interesting papers about IT in east Germany. A first class source for detailed information (Note for example the Chronology or the book list). Two quite interesting studies about IT technology in Eastern Germany).

World of Spectrum

Eventualy the #1 source for ZX machines in English.

Philippe Dubois's Musée d'Histoire Informatique (French)

Large collection of pictures and information about computers and classic video games. The site is intended to give a general platform to all needs for classic home computer needs. A current project plans to offer the site strcture and most content also in Englisch and German.

Classiccomputer.de (German)

Christian collected some interesting information about Atari ST and Commodore home computers.

Retrocomputing.CH

A nice display of Roman von Wartburg's collection. Quite an appealing design and lot's of information (at least where the pages are finished).

MCC - My Computer COllection

As the name suggests, it's Maurice de Bijls private collection. A small but quite nicely presented gathering, mainly made up from video games and MSX home computers.

Ulrich Zanders Pages (German)

Very usefull and exceptional Information about East German Z9001, KC85/1, KC87, BIC and A5105 computers, manufactured by Robotron. Ulrich Zander is a former R&D engeneer of Robotron. You'll find lots of hard and software info includeing schematics, ROM listings, images and dozends of scanned manuals as PDF.

Computer museum tonh

Ton den Hartogs private Collection. although the information is still to e improved, it's a manifold and promising resource.

TecMuMaS, the virual TECnology MUseum of MAtthias Schmitt (German)

Right now its barely more than a data base listing of his personal collection, but includeing some quite unusual machines. Hopefuly some extended descriptions are available anytime soon.

Kurt's Schachcomputer (German)

Kurt (further Information unknown :) presents his huge collection of Chess machines. Even with an ELO list of their ranking.

Wolfgang BorrmannsMSX-pages (German)

A decent small collection of MSX computers and related information.

Kolekcji Starych Komputeròw (Polnish/English)

Notable collection from Poland. A large number of high quality pictures display machine characteristics.

Tommark Computer Collection (Polnish/English)

Pictures and Design of Marek Adamczyk rather large collection reminds of Stefen Walgenbachs 'HomeComputer.de'. Quite remarkable, especialy for some eastern machines.

Magazines

The Retro Magazin

'Germanys first magazine for retro Games' (subtitle) is already around since early 2002, readership soaring from issue to issue. Reports to old and new games for classic systems of the 70's and 80' have made it a wothwhile resource to every classic gamer.

Societies

SGVCCE

The San Gabriel Valley Classic Computer Enthusiasts is a new gathering of serious worshipers of old iron.

KC Club of the University of Dresden (German)

The Club is dedicated to supporting the KC 85 line of home computers, a very powerful breed from East Germany (DDR). You may remember that a KC did winn the 1999 Best of Show Award at VCF 3.0 in California. A real nice Web site. Note especially the 99 Snapshots page with lots of GIFizised screen shots of KC programms, giving a short glimp of what programmers did create behind the iron curtain.

Classic Computer Rescue Squad (Englisch)

The CCRS isn't an incooperated society, just an address list of people with the same intention to 'save' old iron.

Events

Z-Fest 2009

The wold famous Z-Fest is ment as a meeting of Z80 geeks, but open to all 8 Bit guys and gals.

Atariáda 2009

A meeting of the Atariclub Prostejov, a small city near Brno, Czech Republic, on Saturday, April 10th.

Let me add some remarks:

<RANTMODE>
I invested more than a few hours to surf the Web and I found a lot of useful and informative sites out there. People invest an enormous time and energy in building and maintaining these sites. Just why do so many trash their effort by using Script solutions and other Gimmicks for secondary effects? Why do you need the most up to date version of a specific browser brand to see old computers? Isn't it possible that people may even use classic gear to access these sites? I have given up in searching for common sense at sites done by marketing guys fond of using the latest MS/CSS/whatever toys, but I still belive in a geeks mind ... But if even a Netscape 4.05 is not able to render a site properly, what about the real old stuff? Or even more, new browsers for old gear like C64 or Apple ][?

So, dear classic computer web geek, if you do your next site redesign, please try use some of the tools you are talking about to check your pages. An old Unix box with Lynx (well, or just a Windows Lynx:), some older variations of Netscape, maybe on a 68K Mac (Thy ARE fun), etc. pp. - and if you'd realy like your visitors to read your pages and come back again, maybe add tags for visualy or otherwise impaired people ... you will notice that device independend and userfriendly design may be the same thing (after all, HTML is about Text Structure and not fancy pictures) ... Of course, such a design may be harder to reach at first sight, but challenges are to be mastered!
</RANTMODE>