FEB Collections
FEB has not yet established a museum available for visits by the general public. The collection is stored at different places. Parts of the collection are displayed in temporary exhibitions in France, organized by some customers, or by administrations celebrating an anniversary of their computer centers. The large majority of the collection is made of computer items produced and sold by Bull group or by other French companies later incorporated in Bull.
Some Items are stored (and may be visited by prior arrangements) in Massy-Palaiseau in Paris south suburbs, in Belfort and in Angers near the Bull main computer plant. Those arrangements are not defintive. FEB is working to improve them.
An attempt is made to keep the machines in
operational condition, a difficult task for the electromechanical devices that are dated
from the 1930s, an almost insuperable task for the early computers, for which spare parts
are not existing any more.
Some machines remain the property of Bull S.A., other belong to FEB. The maintenance of
the whole collection is made by FEB members.
Among the most interesting items of the collection are:
Frederick Bull original tabulator (1923) using round holes 45 columns prunched cards(1)
Bull T-30 tabulator (classified as historical heritage by the French administration) (1931) (2)
Bull D3 sorter (1)
Bull E-12 sorter (400 cards/minute) (1929)
Bull P80 manual keypunch (1940)
Bull BS-120 tabulator (1940)
Bull AN7 printer (1941)
Bull Gamma 3 electronic computer (1955) (2)
parts of Bull Gamma 60 large scale computer (core memory, drum) (1960) (1)
a Gamma-10 card computer (1961) (2)
a GE-55 small computer (1966) (2)
a Honeywell-Bull Level 64 processor (1973) (2)
an original Micral N 1C microcomputer (1973) the recognized world first commercial computer powered by Intel 8008 microprocessor (1)
a Bull DPS-70000 CMOS central system (1986) (2)
many microcomputers built or marketed by Bull in the 1970s and the 1980s as well as a few foreign personal computers (IBM genuine PC, Mac 128KB, Apple II).
(1) located in Massy-Palaiseau
(2) located in Angers
(3) located in Belfort
A Catalog of items may be found here. A detailed database of those items has been recently implemented.
Note that a CD-ROM including better photographs and some videos of the above machines in operation has been produced by FEB
Révision : 17 février 2003.