From computer to smart world

The Zuse Z 11 was the first programmable relay computer from ZUSE KG to go into series production. It was used for mathematical calculations, its hard-wired programs having been designed for surveying tasks in particular. The last in a development series of electro-mechanically controlled computer systems, it contained relays as binary switching elements. These may have been slower than vacuum tubes, but were also more reliable, more durable and less expensive. Date of manufacture: 1958. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

The Anita was the first all-electronic, tube-based desktop calculator. Not only was it completely silent, but it operated much faster than mechanical machines, and was maintenance-free too. However, tubes were not an optimum technical solution for desktop calculators as they used a lot of electricity, were relatively susceptible to breakage and were expensive to produce. For this reason, this technology remained unique to the Anita. Mass production of such devices only became an option once transistors started to be used from around 1964 onwards. Date of manufacture: 1961. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

This computer originated from the Gemini II mission; it featured in an unmanned space flight on 19.01.1965. The Mercury and Gemini space programmes laid the groundwork for the moon landing. From 1963 onwards, the Gemini missions tested orbital coupling manoeuvres necessary to achieve rendezvous and docking. Safe, accurate manoeuvring was only possible with the aid of a computer. IBM’s commission to develop the on-board computer was worth $26.6 million. It was the first computer to have a magnetic core memory so that data was not destroyed when read out. It was also IBM’s first computer to be fully transistorised. The computer proved reliable in operation. Date of manufacture: about 1964. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

In 1965, the Digital Equipment Corporation presented the PDP-8, thereby marking the beginning of the mini-computer era. Priced at just 18,200 Dollars, this general-purpose computer was robust enough to be used in both production and laboratory environments. Some 10,000 of them were sold within the space of 10 years; by 1975, the PDP-8 cost just 2,600 Dollars. A whole variety of manufacturers tapped into the new market, building computers based on the PDP-8 for use in process and manufacturing technology and for controlling experiments in research. By 1975, more than 30 companies in the West German market alone were selling mini-computers. Date of manufacture: 1965. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

The great success enjoyed by Nixdorf at the end of the 1960s and start of the 1970s was based largely on the computers of the 820 series. These were universal computers for companies of all sizes and could be used for almost any application area thanks to their modular construction and consistent application of the modular design system. Date of manufacture: 1974. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

Canon Canola Pocketronic, Sanyo ICC-82D, Sharp EL-8: The first battery-operated electronic pocket calculators were brought out virtually simultaneously in 1970 by Japanese firms Sanyo, Sharp and Canon. However, the "heart" of these first pocket calculators – the microchip – was produced by US companies such as Texas Instruments and Rockwell. Texas Instruments had developed the first portable prototype as early as 1967. But the Cal-Tech, as it was known, was merely supposed to demonstrate the power of the new chip and never went into series production. The huge sales potential of the pocket calculator had yet to be recognised, especially since it was still too expensive to produce. It was for this reason that Texas Instruments sold the technical design of the Cal-Tech to Canon, and only brought out its own pocket calculator in 1972. Date of manufacture: 1970. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

The Odyssey console laid the foundations for the video game era. In 1966 Ralph Baer, a US engineer of German descent, filed a patent for a kind of ping-pong game. This was ultimately granted in 1968. It was not until 1972 that the game was distributed with a gaming console by Magnavox. Poor marketing meant that although the video game wasn’t a commercial flop, it wasn’t a resounding financial success either. Date of manufacture: 1972. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

The HP-35 was the world's first scientific pocket calculator. Before it came along, slide rules and logarithm tables were required for trigonometric and exponential functions. Pocket calculators were only capable of the four basic arithmetic operations. The price for an HP-35 in 1972 was about DM 2,000. Date of manufacture: 1972. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

In 1970, the photocopier company Xerox founded a research centre in Palo Alto known as PARC. This is where the Xerox Alto was developed, a forerunner of much of the PC technology taken for granted today. The Alto had a graphical user interface and a mouse, and was the model on which first the Macintosh, then Windows were based. It was also fully network-capable: the Ethernet was another Xerox PARC invention. Many Alto system engineers later worked on the Apple Macintosh. Only around 1,000 examples of the Alto were built; it was a prototype and was never launched on the market. Date of manufacture: 1973. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

The January 1975 issue of the magazine Popular Electronics featured the forerunner of the first personal computer, the Altair 8800, which had been designed by Ed Roberts and his company MITS. It was available as a kit for 397 US dollars, making it the first computer that ordinary consumers could afford and marking the advent of widespread PC use. Incidentally, the Altair's name comes from a TV series. The twelve-year-old daughter of editor Les Solomon said: “Call it Altair. That's where the Enterprise is heading tonight.“ Date of manufacture: 1975. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple on 1 April 1976. Soon afterwards, they presented their first computer: the Apple I. A total of only 200 Apple I computers were made. Jobs and Wozniak built it in Jobs's parents' garage in Los Altos, California and sold it for $666. The Apple I was actually just a circuit board. Users had to make their own housing for it and add input and output devices themselves. There are still around 70 Apple I computers in existence worldwide. Date of manufacture: 1976. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

The Apple II was the first “personal“ desktop computer to achieve commercial success. In contrast to the Apple I, the main board was supplied in a plastic housing together with a keyboard, a monitor and software. The Apple Writer word processor and VisiCalc spreadsheet software were key to its success. The Apple II marked the start of Apple's rise to become the world's most successful company. Date of manufacture: 1977. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

The computer centre from the Sachsenwerk in Dresden is part of a system that was only shut down in 1993. It played a role in GDR computer history and a part in the success story of a major computer system. The Einheitliches System Elektronischer Rechenanlagen (standardized system of electronic computers) is the functional replica of an IBM computer: ESER 1055 is compatible with the 370/155 in terms of hardware and software alike. These computer systems were built until well into the 1980s. Date of manufacture: about 1979. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

Whenever computers were mentioned in the 1960s and 1970s, IBM was the name on everyone's lips. Despite this, the manufacturing giant was so slow to react that it almost missed out on the personal computer revolution, eventually launching its own PC 5150 in August 1981. The device proved an immediate hit, becoming an office mainstay. After all, it was a product of THE computer company, a fact which engendered trust among businesses that had not had any faith in the models available on the market thus far. The IBM PC, which ran with Microsoft's DOS operating system, provided the industry standard that had been lacking for so long. Date of manufacture: 1984. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

When Adam Osborne founded his computer firm, he was already well-known on the burgeoning home-computer scene thanks to numerous books and articles he had published. Although others before him had toyed with the idea of building a portable computer, his model, the Osborne 1, was the first on the market. Compared with today’s laptops, the Osborne 1 was extremely heavy and unwieldy. Despite this drawback, it proved a big success and almost became a cult object. Unfortunately, Osborne’s company went bankrupt in 1983. Date of manufacture: 1983. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

Commodore presented the C64 in 1982. Two years after its launch, four million units had already been sold, breaking all previous records for computer sales. Ultimately, a total of over 20 million C64 computers were sold throughout the world. The C64 was sometimes referred to as the “breadbox“ or even the “neck rest“ due to its shape. Date of manufacture: 1982. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

Motorola launched the first commercial mobile phone in 1983: the Dynatac 8000X. This bulky forebear of today's mobile phones weighed almost 750 grams and cost around $400. Date of manufacture: 1983. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

Apple launched the Macintosh on 24 January 1984. The Mac broke with all the previously accepted notions about PCs. When Jef Raskin, the father of the Mac, proposed the project in 1979, his idea was to design a computer that was geared to people. The Mac enabled normal users to become acquainted with the graphical user interface featuring desktop, mouse and windows. All they had to do beforehand was to unpack it and plug it in. Although the Mac lost out to the IBM PCs in the office environment, it revolutionised the entire graphic design industry. Date of manufacture: 1984. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

The Cray-2 was the fastest computer in the world in 1985. It weighed 2.5 tonnes. It was supplied as a supercomputer with up to four processors, a peak performance of 2 GFLOPS, 2 GB of memory and a maximum clock speed of 4.1 ns. It is notable for its striking design. A total of 27 units were sold. Date of manufacture: 1985. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

The Nintendo Game Boy proved to be one of the most successful products in the company’s history. The hand-held video game device was launched on the market in a plain grey-and-white version in 1989. Its robust technology, ease of operation and low battery consumption all helped to make it the biggest-selling console of the time. Although the Game Boy was initially only available with the game Tetris, strangely enough this became part of its appeal: it wasn’t just for hard-core players, but for everyone. The Game Boy was manufactured until 2002 and 120 million devices were sold in all. Date of manufacture: about 1990. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

The Newton was Apple’s attempt to create a revolutionary new device. A feature of the PDA (Private Digital Assistant) was handwriting recognition software; the device also came with a stylus which was supposed to make entering text child’s play. The touch-sensitive screen would detect characters and words automatically as they were written. However, this feature never really worked properly at market launch, something which gave rise to less than glowing reviews in the press. The project was halted in 1998 when company founder Steve Jobs re-joined the company. Date of manufacture: 1993. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

Robot soccer represents a major challenge for researchers in the field of artificial intelligence. A proving ground for the state of science in this field, it is also a means of promoting university-level education. Since 1997, international RoboCup matches featuring research teams from all over the world have been held in various leagues. This model – a third-generation, Middle Size League robot – belongs to the Fraunhofer Institut. Each robot has its own sensors and can make decisions completely autonomously. The robots can, however, communicate wirelessly with one another and with a computer. Date of manufacture: 1999. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

The robot dog AIBO was perhaps the most technically sophisticated toy ever to be created by its Japanese manufacturer Sony: the battery-operated dog came with 18 electrically controlled joints, microphones, loudspeakers, emotion display, 64-bit processor and a balance system to enable it to stand up. Date of manufacture: 1999. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

Lauron stands for “LAUfROboter Neuronal gesteuert” (English: “Walking Robot, Neural Controlled”). The walking robot (the 3rd generation of which is on show) was developed in order to research statically stable walking in rough terrain. Its movements are biologically inspired, mimicking those of a stick insect. Each leg can respond semi-autonomously to impulses; the movements are coordinated at a higher level. Lauron is able to gather information about its environment and plan a path towards a given goal autonomously. While walking, the robot uses sensors to detect potential obstacles and then either walks over or around them. Date of manufacture: 1999. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF

RoboThespian is a life-sized humanoid robot designed for human interaction in public environments. It can sing as well as tell jokes and recite text passages. Visitors can choose from a selection of programmed text sequences for the metallic creation to read out, accompanied by a range of gestures. Date of manufacture: 2011. Photo: Jan Braun, HNF