19 Jun
1998
19 Jun
'98
12:44 p.m.
Servus Hans!
At 20:56 19-06-98 +0001, you wrote:
Being in close communication with my friends and their families in Bayern,
I had the language experience to pick up on "Servus". Unfortunately, I do
not visit Germany enough to grow my ability to understand German and
Bayerische -not to mention read it well and speak it! But with technical
German, I can make out pretty well most of the time reading. I can also get
something out of Hoch Deutsch when I listen to TV or radio. I never had
German taught to me in school, only French which I never used and forgot
most of.
Same here for sure! But we are located a little off the normal path of
international travelers to the States unless you come to Niagara Falls
(only 155 km from my home). The Falls are impressive to just watch while
quietly sitting in the nearby park! To me, it is just like driving toward
Salzburg on route #304 just past Inzell on the way to Koenigsee on a
beautiful day! Sehr gemuetlich!
Thanks Sam!
And yes, you can certainly see 'strange things' here in the States as some
of us can verify! Ask about cow chip throwing contests, etc.
That's what my friends from Bayern say after they have visited the northern
parts of Germany and hear Preissen Sprache; Plattdeutsche <spelling?>
besonders!!
Gruss, Chris
-- --
=======================================================
Christian R. Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
31 Houston Avenue, WE Phone: +716-488-1722 -Home
Jamestown, New York +716-661-1832 -Office
14701-2627 USA Fax: +716-661-1888 -Office fax
email: cfandt(a)servtech.com
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL: http://www.ggw.org/freenet/a/awa/
Hard, I own 2 Robotron PCs (one Z80 CP/M system and one PC Clone),
but since I live in Muenchen (:), I'm not in the 'native Environment'
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>of Robotron clasics. But maybe I could forward your questuons to some
>east German friends. Well, Hans, I *thought* you had to be Bavarian
(Bayerische)!! Either that
or perhaps Austrian because of your signoff ("Servus").
You're the first US citicen to recognize this :) Will be over again in one year or more.
Great - give me a call (or a mail :) and I'll show yo usome
of my babys. Great to have you on the list as I've not
seen
postings of yours since the time I had joined last November until recently
I think.
I just joined two weeks ago after Sam Ismail pointed
me to the list (we had some discusion about VCF - I
will come to see it - and other strange things). Good to have a person in our group who is nearby
to the Deutches
Museum who seems to have a very good early computer collection (saw it in
1994 or 95. Been there four times since '93).
You just searched a phon directory ? Didn't you ? Or who told you that I live near the Deutsches Museum ?
True, my apartment is just 100m from the (back) entrance.
No-no. You said you lived in Muenchen (Munich, to most others here<g>) as
per the message piece of yours still quoted above.... Therefore, if you
simply live in Muenchen, then you live close to the museum, especially when
you compare your distance to the dist. away of nearly all of us on this list!
Their _very_ early collection - up to the Zuse - ist quite
good, but anything later is crap - or at least the display
is crap - I left the museum society because of the computer
displays. I'm especialy upset because they have _real_
unique things to show in a _unique_ way, but they just build
some junk place.
Ok, I have to be fair - the dispaly is quite amazing, but
in my opinion they ignored a lot of one-of-a-kind chances
just to finish it for the grand opening.
I agree about the display but unfortunately, my memory of it is slowly
disappearing :( I do definitely recall seeing the Zuse display and was
rather surprised. Back in the year when I saw the Informatik Sektion (had
to be in '94, not '95 as I tried to guess in previous message), I had not
been seriously interested in studying computer history -my main
concentration (and still is) is early radio and television electronics and
early electricity. Therefore, I had not been paying attention to earliest
computing history and Zuse was an interesting part of computing history
that pushed me more toward where I am now. Now, I'm really interested in
study of certain aspects of computing and must go back to Deutsches Museum
to discover more.
When was the Grand Opening?
BTW, the museum URL is <http://www.deutsches-museum.de/> for those who may
be interested. Click on the British flag for English pages. In reference to
another thread started by Tim H. ("What is the first computer?") check out
the early calculator: Leibniz-Rechenmaschine, um (from)1700 at:
<http://www.deutsches-museum.de/ausstell/dauer/inform/infor2.htm> and a few
pictures of early vacuum tube (valve) computers at:
<http://www.deutsches-museum.de/ausstell/dauer/inform/infor4.htm>
Unfortunately, these pages are in German, but some info may be extracted.
Also, only a few examples are shown but I think these pages are not meant
for the 'normal', non-technical person who would be browsing the museum
site or just fall into it during heavy 'net surfing.
Seems I recall several IBM machines on display other than the Zuse machines
during that visit: a 704, 360 console, Cray 1 and several others. Is my
memory correct on the first two Hans? My wife and I will go back to see
that section as she didn't see that when we were there together in Sept. '96.
I did like their early TV display in the Telekomm Sektion. TV history is a
strong interest for me. It was rather complete, in my opinion, spanning the
technological history from the Nipkow Scanning Disk to Jenkins and Baird
for their mechanical TV's and through Zworkyn and Farnsworth. Imagine today
if Zworkyn or anybody else had not developed the electronic cathode ray
tube or if Farnsworth had not developed his Image Dissector (an electronic
method for converting an image to a signal): Our computers (and TV's) would
have some sort of mechanical device to cause an image to be scanned on a
screen in front of us which was transmitted from a source which also used a
mechanical scanning device to convert the image to a signal :) There is
also a _real_ Paulson Arc Transmitter from around 1912 in that section.
Fantastic! I've always read about them used in the States but never saw
one. As far as I know none exist over here now.
Example: they recived a _complete_ SIEMENS 2002, the first
fuly transistorized copmuter. Not only the main boxes -
they got _everything_ needed to show the machine complete,
including _all_ manuals, even spare parts. I think it would
have been possible to rebuild this marvelous machine and
power it up (ok, once) to show it. Maybe it is still possible,
but it has to be done soon - right now several of the old
tecnicans are still alive, but in ten years from now noone
will be here to tell the story.
Exactly! This about what had been discussed some weeks back as to museums
preserving their artifacts. The archives of this list are posted somewhere
(other than the now-kaput ClassicCmp website. Where now?) and you can catch
up. Is there some way you can help make this happen even though you are not
closely connected to the museum now? A _complete, running_ machine is to me
far more valuable as an artifact of technical history than a cut-down
static display ever would be. That plain IBM 360(?) console setting alone
near the Cray 1 comes to mind....
Some of us in the radio collecting hobby have been trying to gather info
directly from the engineers and technicians who actually designed and built
radio/TV equipment before they are gone. We do have some significant work
done in this area. We have extremely important artifacts and documentation,
both in museums and private collections, regarding inventions and
technology of communications. Let's all continue to do the same for
computing as best we can!
Oh, next time when you visit the Deutsches Museum, take
a
look at the Operator desk of the 2002 - you'll find a burned
spot, done by a cigarette. I know the guilty one - a friend
of mine, now retired, did it while they tried to find a power
up problem at the main drum - he acidently left his cigaret
at te desk and got so involved that he forgot it - BIG trouble.
Interesting story which is now part of the "fabric" of its history.
Wish I knew
enough German to
actually speak it but Bayerische is even harder to understand ;)
Amazing - I always had problems the other way. Gruss! Bis spaeter, Chris
Jo bis nacha.
Servus
Hans
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK