06 July 2026 - URZ collection Worlds of Storage Open House: Guided tour of the URZ collection “Worlds of Storage”
As part of the Open House for Heidelberg University’s museums and collections on July 17, 2026, the University Computer Center (URZ) is offering two guided tours of its publicly accessible collection, “Worlds of storage — From punch cards to the Cloud.” Historical original exhibits from the URZ collection show how data storage has changed over the decades — from punch cards to room-filling hard drives and floppy disks to USB flash drives.
How was data stored before USB drives and cloud services existed? During two guided tours of the publicly accessible collection “Worlds of storage—From Punch cards to the Cloud,” the University Computer Center will demonstrate how storage media and computer technology have evolved over the decades. Experience this evolution—from room-filling hard drives to pocket-sized storage media—through exhibits that were once in use at the URZ. What used to be possible only in data centers found its way into private homes via the PC and is now accessible to everyone from anywhere via a smartphone.
Hands-on history of technology: Public guided tours on storage media
How did punch cards work, and what did the first floppy disk look like? The “Speicherwelten” collection vividly illustrates the miniaturization of computer and storage technology toward ever smaller, more powerful devices while storage capacity continues to grow.
Anyone interested is cordially invited to take a look at our display cases on July 17 and experience the history of technology up close.
- 11:00 a.m.–11:30 a.m.: Digital Storage Media—From punch cards to the Cloud
- 2:00 p.m.–2:30 p.m.: Digital Storage Media—From punch cards to the Cloud
The meeting point for the tours is in the entrance area of the URZ, Im Neuenheimer Feld, INF 330.
No advance registration is required for the tours.
The URZ Collection is part of the university’s collections and museums, which are now united under the name heiCOLLECTIONS. To kick off heiCOLLECTIONS, the university invites you to marvel and discover with a diverse program of events.
The URZ—A history of a central institution
The University Computer Center was founded in 1969 and occupied its first premises on Friedrich-Ebert-Platz before moving to Neuenheimer Feld in the mid-1970s. For the first time since 1969, the university had a central facility at its disposal with a newly acquired computing system from the IBM/360 family — costing several million DM — that could be used by all departments for data processing tasks. At the same time, the Computing Center provided technical support for questions and problems related to data processing.
For over half a century, the URZ has kept pace with ever-evolving technological developments—from mainframe computers to PCs, through the emergence of the World Wide Web and the university network, all the way to AI, supercomputers, and growing demands for information security. Today, as the university’s central IT service provider, the URZ ensures basic IT support for the university’s approximately 32,000 students and 15,000 employees. Students and employees in research, administration, and teaching have access to numerous services to support their daily academic and professional lives.