The Heinz Nixdorf Museums Forum, Central Venue for the “History of Computing”

In the late 1970s Heinz Nixdorf began to collect historical calculating devices and early computers to serve as the basic exhibits of a computer museum. After Nixdorf’s death, the Nixdorf Foundation was set up to develop the museum. To see the different ways of looking at computer history, a pluralistic approach was chosen, with the focus on the history of objects, ideas, people or societies. This paper tells something of the development, goals and purpose of the museum.