About the Author

Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Hof. Image: © Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt, used with permission.

An Apple II at Home

I was six years old when my father brought an Apple II home, and I have been fascinated by computers ever since. My own first computer was a Commodore 64. An acoustic coupler took me into the mailbox scene, the German name for the world of bulletin board systems, and later I ran a mailbox of my own, the ChaosBBS.

Karlsruhe

I studied computer science at the University of Karlsruhe, one of the places where German computer science began: Karl Steinbuch, who coined the word Informatik, held a chair there from 1958, and in 1984 the first Internet e-mail to reach Germany arrived in Karlsruhe (see Germany’s Computing Pioneers). I also earned my doctorate there. I had the honor of being taught by the first generation of German computer scientists, and in the university’s basements I found more than one treasure left over from the early years of the field.

Industry and Teaching

After my doctorate I joined Siemens Corporate Technology, the central research department of Siemens AG. Several of my colleagues there had been pioneers of computing in industry in its early days. I then accepted a professorship for secure software systems at Munich University of Applied Sciences, and later a call to Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt, where I am today Vice President and research professor for automotive cybersecurity.

The Professional Societies

For many years I was a member of the executive board (Präsidium) of the Gesellschaft für Informatik, where I came to know many of Germany’s computing pioneers in person. I also served on the board of the German Chapter of the ACM for several years, four of them as chairman. Both roles brought me many contacts in the international computing community.

The Collection

Old systems and the people behind them have always interested me. I have been collecting artifacts of computing history since I was ten, among them a number of rare books and some curious machines, such as the Commodore SX-64, the portable version of the C64. Following my interest, my collection of notes (“Zettelkasten”) grew to more than 10.000 notes on the history of computer science. The articles on this website are based on these notes. I own an extensive collection of photos of computers, phones, and other machines. However, this collections is still missing a clear structure to use it in this project.

My dream is to found a museum of the history of computer science: one that honors the pioneers and also shows the many branches and dead ends of the field’s development. Until then, my extensive notes have gone into this website.

LinkedIn

I post on the history of computer science several times a week on LinkedIn, usually linking a current event to an article on this website. Follow me on LinkedIn.