Konrad Zuse Museum in Hoyerswerda Shuts Down Due to Lack of Funding
Konrad Zuse Museum shutting down due to lack of funding
The Konrad Zuse Computer Museum in Hoyerswerda, Germany, closed its doors on Tuesday, with the unique collection on the history of computing to be dismantled by year's end. Despite the town's honorary citizenship for Zuse, the computer pioneer, the museum faced financial pressure. A rescue attempt with an anonymous donor's 250,000 euro offer failed, and the city council cut subsidies. The museum houses 18,000 devices and 6,000 books, with no storage plan for the collection.
If this exhibition closes and is dismantled, then this museum is lost, destroyed.
- A_D_E_P_T
Zuse is probably the most under-appreciated thinker of the 20th century. Everybody's heard of Claude Shannon, von Neumann, Feynman, and all the rest of 'em, but Zuse's enormous contributions have received rather little attention.
To summarize a couple of the highlights:
In 1936 Germany, Konrad Zuse began developing the Z1, a mechanical calculating machine programmed via perforated 35mm film. By 1937, he had broadened its architecture toward universal digital computation in the vein of Alan Turing. Although completed in 1938, the machine struggled with mechanical inaccuracies -- the same challenge which plagued Charles Babbage's much earlier work on the Difference Engine. Zuse overcame these mechanical hurdles in 1941 with the Z3, an operational digital computer capable of universal computation.
In fact, the Z3 was the world's first working machine physically capable of universal computation. The first real computer.
Zuse was also one of the great philosophers of the 20th century. In a book he published titled "Calculating Space," He was the first to surmise that our universe is computable by a deterministic computer program. Every "simulation hypothesis" and "mathematical universe" theory is downstream of Zuse. (One could argue that the Pythagoreans and neo-Pythagoreans, who held that the world was at root mathematical, were truly first, but Zuse made important and original contributions nevertheless.) It's important to note that, to this day, there are no physical ob […]
- wvbdmp
Sad, but the reality is, Hoyerswerda is a small town in east east Germany and computer museums are already super niche in general. How many tourists could they possibly get? Maybe the Nixdorf museum in Paderborn can snatch it up. Paderborn is no metropolis either, but at least it’s relatively central and the museum gets 13 times as many yearly visitors.
- karussell
Interesting that this pops up on HN. It was a real nice spot and I'm sad that it goes away. They had really nice holiday activities for kids, but also for adults and elderly. E.g. I myself tried VR the second time in one of the rooms from ZCOM.
I especially enjoyed ZCOM when at one point the Fabmobil visited them and I learned a couple of nice people. Not only computer hacking people but also craftsmans etc too.
Also a couple of times the ZCOM gave us space for our computer club (PPP, rip) in the hope we can benefit from each other. But unfortunately the interests stick to a few great "hardcore" people only, although we offered great and free pizza ;)
Fun times. Not even too long ago...
- jacquesm
For every bit of history there is 'the danger period', when it is still recent enough that most people don't consider it special but old enough that special effort needs to be made to preserve it. Random chance as much as anything else determines what eventually makes it to the status of 'precious antique'. I hope they find a way to mothball it until society is more appreciative, I think it is a unique collection and worth preserving.
- trentor
Location, location, location. It's just in the middle of absolutely nothing. The surrounding has a bit of nature as appeal but it's depression county in regards of everything else.