1 | <?php |
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2 | $blog_title = "The Heritage"; |
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3 | $blog_author = "Sven"; |
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4 | $blog_date = "2019-02-04"; |
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5 | |
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6 | require "blog.php"; |
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7 | |
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8 | print_blog_title(); |
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9 | ?> |
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10 | |
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11 | <div class="desc-right auto-bildbreite borderless" style="padding-right:0"> |
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12 | <a href="/shared/photos/blog/2019-02-04-the-heritage/heribert-mueller-img-8204.jpg" class="popup"> |
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13 | <img src="/shared/photos/blog/2019-02-04-the-heritage/heribert-mueller-img-8204.jpg" |
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14 | style="width: 300px"> |
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15 | </a> |
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16 | <div class="bildtext"> |
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17 | Heribert Müller in 2016, presenting his |
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18 | <a href="/robotik/">robots workshops for kids</a> in the |
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19 | museum. |
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20 | Picture by courtesy of <a href="http://stephaniekreuzer.de/">Stephanie Kreuzer</a> |
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21 | (<a href="https://www.fnp.de/">FNP</a>) |
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22 | </div> |
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23 | </div> |
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24 | |
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25 | <p>Here we go — <a href="/heribert-mueller/">Heribert Müller</a>, our father, |
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26 | is dead and leaves behind the <a href="/">technikum29 computer museum</a>. We, that's |
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27 | his three children, grown-ups with their own occupations, lifes, partly their |
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28 | own families. The museum was largely a “one-man-show”, with Heribert Müller as |
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29 | the single head. He had a passion for reparing a broad range of devices, from the |
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30 | old <a href="en/communication/broadcasting.php">tube radio</a> |
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31 | to the <a href="/en/computer/univac9400.php">data center</a>. Despite having a |
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32 | broad network of friends, there is only a handful of real supporters, an “inner |
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33 | circle” consisting of other museums such as the nearby |
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34 | <a href="http://www.analogmuseum.org/">Analog Computer Museum</a> or the |
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35 | <a href="http://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/index.en.html"> |
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36 | U Stuttgart Computer Museum</a> as well as some remarkable private persons. |
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37 | Noteworthy, nobody of the three of us has a sufficient understanding about |
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38 | neither the technology nor substantial details of the extend of the collection. |
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39 | We are all standing in front of a huge amount of work even to comprehend the |
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40 | current situation of the museum and to work out a decision on its future. |
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41 | |
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42 | |
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43 | |
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44 | <h3>Estate, Inventory and Monetary Value</h3> |
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45 | |
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46 | <div class="desc-left auto-bildbreite borderless" style="padding-left:0"> |
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47 | <a href="/shared/photos/blog/2019-02-04-the-heritage/inventory-marks.jpg" class="popup"> |
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48 | <img src="/shared/photos/blog/2019-02-04-the-heritage/inventory-marks.jpg" |
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49 | style="width: 300px"> |
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50 | </a> |
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51 | <div class="bildtext"> |
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52 | Printed inventory marks before their use. |
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53 | </div> |
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54 | </div> |
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55 | |
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56 | |
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57 | <p>One of the blessings of the museum is Heribert Müllers lifelong urge for |
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58 | independence. One of the consequences is the fact that the whole collection is |
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59 | located in private property and there is no need to rush. In fact, already almost |
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60 | one year passed since his sudden decease and still (unfortunately) little happened. |
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61 | We are in the comfortable situation of not having a need to clear the floors and to |
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62 | close the collection as fast as possible. There is no rent which has to be paid, |
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63 | instead current expenses can be covered by rental incomes of the mixed use of |
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64 | the museum building. |
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65 | |
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66 | <p>What I did in a couple of days in the Summer 2018 was a first approximation |
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67 | of the collection by walking off all storage rooms as well as the exhibition |
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68 | and doing a first — very coarse — inventory. Having printed 900 fine inventory cards |
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69 | (their <a href="https://github.com/technikum29/t29-inventory-cards">code is |
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70 | open sourced on github</a>), I used up almost all of them! In this first inventory, |
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71 | which resulted in a decent table/database which is supposed to be released in |
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72 | the web soon, there are only big units listed (say bigger then a typical |
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73 | notebook). Inventorying even smaller devices, loose parts, not even to mention |
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74 | cables, boxes with stuff or sparse components will require ten times as much |
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75 | effort. Given the overall shape of the collection (both the exhibition and the |
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76 | warehouse), it is partly more a huge unsorted collection of something. |
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77 | |
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78 | <p>What's the monetary worth of the collection? Without doubt, the |
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79 | one-of-a-kind display items which are in a well-restored shape are part of the |
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80 | exhibition and especially part of <a href="/">this very website</a>. It is |
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81 | an open secret that some of the display items are very rare and wanted on the |
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82 | collectors marketplaces and in fact worth thousands of Euros. |
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83 | Regardless of wether there is a future for the museum or not, we want to avoid |
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84 | paying a large amount of inheritance taxes on the collection. Therefore, we |
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85 | need to continue to get an overview of what is actually part of the legacy, |
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86 | but also come up with price tags. Here, it is quite obvious that selling the |
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87 | collection is a large amount of work where every single device requires |
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88 | attention and technical knowledge to archive a good price on the highly |
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89 | specialized and small marketplaces. |
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90 | We would have to pay experts to do so, which of course reduces |
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91 | the overall gain. For some large blocks, such as our |
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92 | <a href="/de/rechnertechnik/gamma10.php">Bull's</a> or |
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93 | <a href="/de/rechnertechnik/univac9200.php">Univac's</a>, there will be hardly |
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94 | any interests and we would have to pay a disposal company to come with a truck. |
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95 | In total, we estimated the weight of these cabinets as around 20-30 |
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96 | metric tonnes. The disposal of so much metal would cost hundreds of Euros. |
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97 | |
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98 | <h3>Future: A Living Computer History Museum for Germany?</h3> |
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99 | |
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100 | <p>In fact, there is common understanding in the (legally still lasting) community |
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101 | of heirs to preserve the museum and to strive for a future. In the last year, |
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102 | I worked a lot on the organizational and ideational fundamentals of such a future |
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103 | museum. The museum must leave the private sector and go for the public benefit. |
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104 | There is also a need for content realignment (mainly due to the lack of ressources), |
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105 | in order to focus on the unique selling point: An exhibition of fully working |
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106 | computers. Worldwide, there is no other collection with such a claim. |
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107 | |
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108 | <p>In the next blog post, I will go into detail about what ideas I have worked out |
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109 | during the last year. |
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110 | |
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111 | <?php print_author_info(); ?> |
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