Travelling to Paderborn, Germany 4 --- Visit to Heinz Nixdorf Museum and Schloß Neuhaus Castle (b)

The second story, the organization was more squarish, nevertheless, we still visit in clockwise direction. It was basically showing the evolution of computer in the world, from 1950s to 1970s, 70s to 80s, 80s to 90s, 90s to millennium and beyond in future.

a) Antique ATM Machine

b) Storage Media

c) Antique Computers and Laptop

d) Antique Mobile Communications

e) Digital Games and automatic chess machines

f) Antique Radio and Walkman

g) MARK I (for gas turbine control?)

h) Modern Technology, i.e. color sensor, watch, robot soccer dog, robotic arm, robotic facial, interactive games (scissors, stone and paper) and flight simulator

After visiting for more than one and half hours, I continued my journey to Schloß Neuhaus. I did not take my lunch at the HNF Bistro since it is serving sandwiches and the price is not cheap (around 10 EUR). Luckily, there was a small Chinese restaurant (or stall) along the way, I took Fried Duck Rice (my only rice meal in Germany) for 7+EURO (normally Asian foods in Europe are expensive).

I took some photos at Schloß Neuhaus. It was really a beautiful renaissance moated castle. The garden in front of the castle is also spectacular (there were two pairs of couples taking their bridal photo on each side of the garden).

Nothing much there, it was just a beautiful outlook. There seems to be no admission into the castle. There were a museum beside the castle, I went in to have a look since it was FOC. There were two museums, i.e. one on the history of the castle and one on the natural science. It was no photography allowed and all the descriptions were in German. So, I just walked through the museums within half an hour. The exhibits are interactive, great for school tour.

Schloß Neuhaus Entrance

Schloß Neuhaus Front View

Schloß Neuhaus Garden with 1st Couple

Schloß Neuhaus Garden with 2nd Couple

Schloß Neuhaus Side View

Schloß Neuhaus Moat

Schloß Neuhaus Church

Schloß Neuhaus Water Hand Pump

Then another one hour walk back to the hotel…and it started to rain in the midway…I reached around 4:30pm…it really tired for my feet after a long walk…

In conclusion, I really feel that it worthwhile to have this visit if you so happen to dropped by Paderborn, especially the HNF museum. It is really a great effort and investment to collect so many of these exhibits at that point of time. The founder of HNF, the late Mr. Heinz Nixdorf, he himself had collected over 1,000 objects in the field of office communication... .You can see the whole history of computer under one roof with such a low cost.

Another observation was that children in Europe are fortunate to be able to get expose to museums and education environment in younger age as compared to us.