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. 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! 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. 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! Interesting story which is now part of the "fabric" of its history. 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/