as some old links here are not links these days: an update to a functional pointer to robotron: nice material, ie about

"(OPREMA=Optische Rechenmaschine)
Dieser auf Relaisbasis arbeitende Rechner wurde 1955 von der Firma Carl Zeiss Jena gebaut und dort für optischen Berechnungen (Linsensysteme) eingesetzt. Die Entwicklungen dazu begannen 1954. Die Grundfläche des Rechners betrug 55 m². | robotrontechnik

nice advertisment pics provided by pierre mounier, visible at an alan turing exhibition in paris.

"In the 1940s (perhaps earlier), Alan Turing, like many others, used a Brunsviga desk calculator. He even compared its "memory size" to that of other calculators : Brunsviga : 60 bits. Manchester Baby : 1 024 bits. Project ACE : 60 000 bits. (from the excellent biography by Andrew Hodges)" | pierre mounier

sad news. hubert zimmermann died on the 9th of november 2012. once he wanted to go abroad to study computing in the usa, but met louis pouzin, who convinced him to stay in europe, and to work with him on cigale and cyclades instead. later he tried to influence the european way of doing networking at osi. he chaired the osi architecture committee, who formulated the osi reference model (7 layers etc.pp), which still helps networkers today to understand what they are actually talking about.

in memoriam hubert zimmermann: what else do you want to know? (paris, july 14, 2005)

hubert zimmermann tells how he came to computer networking in 1966, why he didn't leave paris in 1972; talks about cyclades, his time as chair of the osi architecture committee at the international organization for standardization (iso), and why a stronger support of the tcp/ip community at iso might have made a difference in the late 1970s, early 1980s.

(andy reminded me, that the answer to the question can be found here as well.)

hubert zimmermann was member of ifip wg 6.1, and received the sigcomm award 1991 “for his 20 years of leadership in the development of computer networking and the advancement of international standardization”.

in april 1974, hubert zimmermann and michel elie, both members of the cyclades project, distributed inwg 61, titled ‘‘standard host/host protocol for heterogeneous computer networks.’ | alexander mcKenzie: inwg and the conception of the internet: an eyewitness account

according to his biography he was lately advising companies in france.

29 novembre 2012, paris: en hommage à hubert zimmermann