Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Musée de l'informatique, inaugurated in April 2008 in Puteaux in the district of La Défense, was the first French museum entirely dedicated to the history of computer science. Located at the top of the Arche de la Défense, it presented more than 200 rare objects, tracing the technological evolution from 1890 to the present day. His motto, "Knowing the past, understanding the present, to imagine the future", reflected his educational and heritage ambition. The museum offered interactive exhibitions, such as "Le fil du temps", which featured iconic machines, from microprocessors to the first laptops, the Minitel and video game consoles.

The project was initiated by Philippe Nieuwbourg, a computer journalist and co-founder of the iMusée de Montréal. The latter collected private collections to reconstruct the history of computer heritage, including pieces such as the Cray XMP, the Macintosh Plus signed by Steve Jobs, and the first French microcomputer, the Micral. The museum organized temporary exhibitions, such as "The Internet from the Cold War to the present" or "Mac, 25 years old", in collaboration with donors and associations such as WDA and MO5.com. Despite its success, it closed permanently in 2010 due to technical problems related to the lifts of the Ark and then for contested administrative reasons.

The closure of the museum sparked controversy, with its director accusing the Ministry of Ecology of having recovered the premises for internal purposes (meetings, congresses). The collections, stored without being reused until 2017, were finally entrusted to the WDA and MO5 associations. The museum had also launched calls for witnesses to enrich its exhibitions, such as the one on the Société d'Electronics et d'Automatisme (SEA), the first French computer manufacturer in the 1950s. Its legacy continues through travelling "digital cities" in France.

The main pieces exhibited included the Osborne 1 (first laptop), the IBM PC 5150 (symbol of Microsoft's early days), and the NeXT Cube (created by Steve Jobs after his departure from Apple). The museum also explored the history of the Internet, from Cold War military networks to web marketing in the 1990s. An immersive scenography, "the flow of time", allowed visitors to follow the innovations chronologically, from mechanical calculators to modern microprocessors.

Donors played a key role in the creation of collections. Among them were Robert Arnould (donator of the Cray X-MP), George Berg (collection of Macintosh), or the Hermieu family, which offered archives of the SICOB (Salon des Industries du Commerce de Bureau). The museum collaborated with specialized magazines, such as SVM Mac, for commemorative exhibitions. Despite his brief existence, he marked history as a pioneer in the preservation of the IT heritage in France, inspiring other initiatives such as ACONIT in Grenoble.

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