A field trip bought this writer into the hallowed halls of the Heinz Nixdorf Museum, situated in Paderborn, Germany, a town bang smack bang more or less in the middle of not really anywhere. The museum was erected inside the shell of the former main Nixdorf administration building, which was built back in 1976. Nixdorf Computer AG used to be one of the big manufacturers of computing equipment and ran its operations from out of the quaint East Westfalian town of Paderborn, before the company became Siemens Nixdorf.

It is well worth a visit, as it has the entire history of computing and networking out on display – provided you're in Germany and in the region, which can be the case if you're on a business trip to Bertelsmann AG, located in nearby Gütersloh.

The display starts with cuneiform writing back from the days of King Nebukhadnezar to demonstrate the way information was stored a few thousand years ago – namely by imprinting symbols on clay. However, from a social anthropological viewpoint it is a bit outré to convey a continuous and universal development over and above different cultures, times and places. The desire to collect, store and compute information the way we do and with the tools which were developed to do so can certainly be seen as a development which must be seen in context with certain historic processes, defining the structures of thought which, in turn, lead to the creation of adequate tools.

Nonetheless, the museum is enough to satisfy the heart of each and every geek or person with an interest in the history of computers and communication.

How about IBM's original prototype of the computer used in the NASA Apollo moon-landing? Yes, the computer used in the Gemini II vehicle, which was used to prove the design would work on a space mission, is on display in the museum – at least according to the guide.

Apart from that, the display showed a part of the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, dubbed Mark I by Harvard University, an ancient computer from way back in 1945. It's computing power was trashed by the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and computer) which was churned out in 1946. 50 years later, the wizardry of integrated circuits meant ENIAC was small enough to fit on a single 6mm X 6mm chip.

Standing next to a Cray II is also an experience. A liquid-cooled, once-was supercomputer with 2 gigs of memory, which cost the German federal state of Baden Wuerttemberg a stonking 46 million Deutsche Marks back in 1986.

The museum also offered an array of antique and modern gadgetry, from old typewriters to five-kilo heavy mobiles to voice controlled computing applications and demonstrations of Artificial Intelligence.

To round it all up, a model of Moore's law showing the development of power from 1965 to 2005 where we've come to after merely 40 years of chip wizardry. X

Check out
Heinz Nixdorf Museum