The Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum (HNF) in

Paderborn Paderborn (; Westphalian: ''Patterbuorn'', also ''Paterboärn'') is a city in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, capital of the Paderborn district. The name of the city derives from the river Pader and ''Born'', an old German term for t ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, is the largest computer museum in the world (as of 2018). It is named after the Paderborn computer pioneer and entrepreneur Heinz Nixdorf.

History

In 1977, Heinz Nixdorf received numerous gifts in the form of historic office machines at the celebrations for the company anniversary of 25 years of

Nixdorf Computer AG Nixdorf Computer AG was a West German computer company founded by Heinz Nixdorf in 1952. Headquartered in Paderborn, Germany, it became the fourth largest computer company in Europe, and a worldwide specialist in banking and point-of-sale syste ...

, which gave him the idea of expanding them into a collection for a computer museum. The museum idea became more concrete in 1983/1984 through purchases with the support of the

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

office machine expert Uwe Breker. In 1985, the entrepreneur had his first exhibition concept drawn up by Prof. Ludwig Thürmer and his partners, but it was still undecided on the location. In 1986, Heinz Nixdorf died unexpectedly. The Nixdorf employee Willi Lenz, also a member of the "Computermuseum" working group, had the idea of a museum in discussion with the city of Paderborn and in 1990 obtained a positive city council resolution to establish it. Between 1992 and 1996, the HNF was designed and built on the premises of the former headquarters of

by the

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

architects Ludwig Thürmer and Gerhard Diel, and a scientific team led by the mathematician Norbert Ryska. In the presence of the then Federal Chancellor

Helmut Kohl Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (; 3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998. Kohl's 16-year tenure is the longes ...

, the museum was opened on 24 October 1996. has an average of over 110,000 visitors annually. The institution is supported by the Westphalia Foundation and the Heinz Nixdorf Foundation, formed from the estate of Heinz Nixdorf.

Exhibits

In its permanent exhibition space, the museum presents 5,000 years of

information and communications technology Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computers, ...

(ICT). In a historical journey through time, the story is presented from the origin of

writing Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically Epigraphy, inscribed, Printing press, mechanically transferred, or Word processor, digitally represented Symbols (semiot ...

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...

around 3,000 BC to current topics such as the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

, and

robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...

. In the 6,000 square meters available, more than 5,000 exhibits can be seen, organized on two floors. The museum stores around 25,000 objects in total. Some museum objects are available for access via an online database.

References

External links

* 1996 establishments in Germany Nixdofr, Heinz, MuseumsForum Buildings and structures in Paderborn (district) Computer museums Museums established in 1996 Paderborn Technology museums in Germany {{Germany-museum-stub

History

Exhibits

Further reading

References

External links