The Deutsches Rechenzentrum [German Computing Center] Darmstadt was founded 3rd October 1961 and was the first german data center apart from universities. It was conceived as a service provider, as well as a place for research and education.
In the Deutsches Rechenzentrum in Darmstadt in december 1965, specialist in German studies Gerhard Stickel developed a programme with which poetry-like texts could be produced automatically – so called Autopoems.
The Deutsches Rechenzentrum also presented an exhibition (Deutsches Rechenzentrum, Darmstadt 1966) of Computer Art from 15th January – 15th February in 1966. It featured graphics of Frieder Nake, the music of Max V. Mathews and Ben Deutschmann of the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey (USA) and texts of Gerhard Stickel. For the first time, an exhibition of this kind generated wide public resonance: several broadcasting stations, including the television magazine Panorama, produced reports on computer graphics.
The Deutsches Rechenzentrum Darmstadt had been gifted an IBM 704 computer by IBM Germany. In 1963-66 it held an IBM 7090 with IBM 1401 periphery which was upgrade in 1966 to IBM 7094. In 1969 they worked with an AEG-Telefunken TR 440.