This was the headline (literally "Computing master came into the museum") of a report in the Munich Abendzeitung on the transport of the PERM to the Deutsches Museum - in precision work through a window in the attic of the museum building.
PERM stands for "Programmgesteuerte Elektronische Rechenanlage München".

The PERM hanging on the crane hook. Photo: AZ

Some months ago the heavyweight fossil computer was lifted, using a scaffold, out of the third floor of the Technische Universität München where it stood already for several years on exhibit, after its retirement in March 1974 - it was "put to sleep", as a remark on a nostalgic souvenir tablet said. It had done useful work for almost twenty years, after it was constructed in 1952-1955 under the guidance of the professors Hans Piloty (Department of Electrical Engineering) and Robert Sauer (Department of Mathematics) by a team of engineers and mathematicians, among whom R. Piloty, W. Proebster, H. Leilich, K. Samelson, H. Schecher, and F. L. Bauer should be mentioned - some of them remained attached to the TUM. In their time, Piloty and Sauer had been important members of the university. Both held for some while the office of the Rector Magnificus, Sauer was vice president of the Bavarian Senate.

The years of construction of the PERM were characterized by restrictions the German industry had been subjected to by the Allied Military Government: the development of electronic equipment was supervised. Thus, the first electronic computers in Germany were developed in the niche of the universities: in Göttingen, in Munich, in Dresden. Today, in the Deutsches Museum, in the exhibition Informatik und Automatik, expertly designed by F. L. Bauer, the Munich PERM and the Göttingen G1a, constructed by Billing, are on display.

Thomas.Ströhlein@informatik.tu-muenchen.de