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'.
RetroBrot: Personal pages with some game systems

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.
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.
Technikmuseum Main Taunus (German): Several beautiful Pictures and related Informations of early computers compiled by Heribert Müller and his son.
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 - you may need to disable Javascript, since the script in use is not fully downward compatible.
Classiccomputer.de (German): Christian collected some interesting information about Atari ST and Commodore home computers.
SPCM - Sharp Pocket Computer Museum: Helmut Westhäuser's Sharp PC Museum (Pocket Computer, not Personal Computer), got pictures of almost all of the classic Sharp handhelds.
Retrocomputing.CH: A nice display of Roman von Wartburg's collection. Quite an appealing design (except that he tries to reformat your window).
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.

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.
SCUG (German): The SCHNEIDER/AMSTRAD CPC USER GROUP keeps the CP/M seal in Munich for long years. Gatherings are held every two weeks on a professional level.
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 2003: The wold famous Z-Fest is ment as a meeting of Z80 geeks, but open to all 8 Bit guys and gals.
XzentriX 2003: Traditional Bavarian autumn meeting for all hands on 8/16 Bit Geeks.
PLATARIADA 2003: Platarida, a meeting for Atari Geeks in Budweis, Czech Republic, on June 20th-22nd.

<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 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?

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 independand 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>