The South Tyrolean carpenter Peter Mitterhofer (1822-1893) invented the principle of the modern lever typewriter. Only four of his machines, which were mainly made of wood, have survived: The "Vienna 1864", "Dresden", "Meran" and "Vienna 1869" models. Today, they are considered icons of the history of technology and are kept in the Merano City Museum, the Vienna Museum of Technology and the Dresden Technical Collections.

The "Dresden Model" was first acquired by the Chemnitz Wanderer-Werke in 1933 before Prof. Siegfried Hildebrand added it to the teaching collection of the Institute for Electrical and Precision Engineering at the TH Dresden, which he headed, in 1953. This typewriter was transferred from the TU Dresden to the Polytechnic Museum of the City of Dresden in 1974. Together with the Dresden model, a box containing individual parts of another typewriter by Mitterhofer was also added to the collection. These parts were reassembled into a functioning typewriter at the Institute in 1955 and some missing parts were reproduced. The resulting hybrid model was extensively examined and restored in 2005/06 at the HTW Berlin as part of a diploma thesis. It was then on loan to the museum in Partschin, Mitterhofer's birthplace, for many years.

After the Institute of Electromechanical and Electronic Design, with the support of the Office for Academic Heritage, Scientific and Art Collections, reactivated the institute's own collection in recent years and set it up in an attractive display depot, the Mitterhofer has now also returned to TU Dresden.

The display depot and typewriter can be viewed on request. Collection manager of the precision engineering collection:
Iris Bönisch,