UNIVERSITY COMPUTING CENTRE (URZ) STORAGE WORLDS
From the punched card to the cloud
As a scientific computing centre, the URZ continuously tests and develops new technologies and services for research, teaching, and administration. The collection of historical storage media illustrates the course of digitization: from punched cards to the floppy disk, from hard drives as large as refrigerators to the USB stick.
The collection was initiated by a long-serving staff member who worked at the URZ from 1970 to 2013. All exhibits were in use at the URZ and show how data were recorded, processed, and stored over decades. It also makes the ongoing miniaturisation clear: what once filled entire rooms and could only be operated in computing centres is now small and, for many, available in mobile or virtual form. It documents the transition from central hardware to networked systems and infrastructures and places today’s forms of digital work in their historical context.