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Comment by mkreis | Hacker News Reader

It's not mentioned in the article (too obvious?), but for wondering: Seems like those computers where used by the sports manufacturer Puma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puma_(brand))

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Was wondering. But it still looks so weird, this little shop in the midst of all those apartment buildings. Shouldn't puma have been a little larger by that time? And why not Adidas?

It could very well be that the previous owner was a collector who bought the machine from Puma, and set it up in that building to tinker with.

That seemed like a very permanent installation for someone who is just tinkering with the machine. Running all of the cables under false floor is a huge hassle and makes fixing problems harder.

Don't underestimate the amount of work a true tinkerer is willing to perform to get the system running 'as it should have been'.

But looking at the pictures of part 3 I have to conclude that the electrical installation was certainly not done professionally. In fact: the mains wiring wouldn't even pass inspection by German law.

So tinkerer or not, I doubt this was the place where this multi-million machine (in Deutsche Marks, that is) would have been installed originally.

At the 80s.. computer put into a otherwise useless room. Sounds smart and realistic even for a big manufacturer. They probably used it for some administrative stuff :)

From what I can see in the pictures, this seems like an annex to a larger building. I imagine that the computer was run by a division of the accounting / book keeping department. Assuming that in the old days there were only a few specialists who were trained in operating a computer, they might have created that space for the (real) nerds. Why not Adidas?! Adidas is a competitor, founded by the brother.

Not that I'm an expert in their history, but they were running one company together until some time after ww2 when they split up. So I was wondering if you saw something specific that hinted at puma. Afaik even today they still both have their HQ in the same city.

I would very much like to know who owned it and what it was used for. and more importantly why it was just left to rot. It must have been worth something.

How can you tell?

I don't know how mkreis could tell but I did notice that in one of the photos you can distinctly see the Puma logo[1] and I thought it was curious. I guess this explains it.

[1] https://ibms360.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/DSC_0062-10...

It's the picture which duiker101 already pointed to, the description of the auction, which mentions a "Puma machine" and the fact that the room was cluttered with sports gear (mentioned in the article).

Additionally Puma was founded very close by and most likely the company was renting out / buying some office space for the accounting division.

It says in the linked article in the translated auction ad.

That linked with the logo would make sense.

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