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Retro Computer Museum

retrocomputermuseum.co.uk

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Re: Retro Computer Museum

#91

Post by da-bacon »

btgeekboy wrote: post #58
oldnetguy wrote: post #47

Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA USA https://computerhistory.org Kennett Classic in Kennett Square, PA USA https://www.kennettclassic.com Large Scale Systems Museum in New Kensington, PA USA https://www.mact.io System Source Computer Museum in Hunt Valley, MD USA https://museum.syssrc.com/ Vintage Computer Federation Museum at Infoage in Wall NJ USA https://vcfed.org/museum-info/

Hopefully someday we can re-add Living Computers in Seattle, WA USA to the list. https://www.livingcomputers.org Paul Allen's death, and then the COVID pandemic, effectively put the museum in stasis. At least two of Allen's former museum-ish places are getting to reopen soon - both the downtown Cinerama and the Flying Heritage and Combat Armor museum in Mukilteo have been sold by his estate and are reopening this yea…

I really hope so, does anyone know if there are any grassroots efforts to help lobby for this?

Re: Retro Computer Museum

#92

Post by mustacheemperor »

AStellersSeaCow wrote: post #61
kator wrote: post #55

While this looks nice, I really loved https://livingcomputers.org/ when it was alive. Sadly it's in stasis now, I was lucky enough to visit while it was still open and I ran around to all these old machines punching in code and showing my wife all the old machines I've worked on in my 40yr+ career.

Came here to post about LCM too, amazing place. Sadly "in stasis" is pretty generous. I know several people who were in that win of the Allen org and they've all said that Jody Allen viewed it as a waste of time and money and was delighted at the opportunity to close it and never reopen courtesy of the pandemic.

After who knows how many people donated the hardware they’d carefully preserved for years with the expectation it would be preserved at the museum as part of Paul Allen’s legacy.

Re: Retro Computer Museum

#94

Post by hunta2097 »

throwaway426079 wrote: post #43
shrikant wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the Museum of Computing in Swindon. https://www.museumofcomputing.org.uk/ I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to visit it, but if you find yourself in Swindon for some reason, then it's worth a peep.

"when a man is tired of Swindon, he is tired of life"

As someone who lives 200 meters from The Magic Roundabout, this is the kind of optimism I can get behind!

Re: Retro Computer Museum

#95

Post by i_k_k »

giobox wrote: post #93

Seattle residents, is this ever coming back? > https://livingcomputers.org/ I only found out about this museum during the pandemic sadly, never visited when it was open.

Sadly, it really sounds like it isn't. It was amazing.

Re: Retro Computer Museum

#96

Post by jamiek88 »

basementcat wrote: post #89
mumblingdrunk wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can also highly recommend a visit to The National Museum of Computing. https://www.tnmoc.org/ While you're there, take a stroll around Bletchley Park as well. Last time I checked, you get a discount when visiting both, and they're right next to each other.

This weekend (5/20-21) they’re hosting an Acorn Econet LAN party! https://www.tnmoc.org/events/2023/5/20/econet-lan-party

Oh man I wish I was still in uk i would so be there.

Re: Retro Computer Museum

#97

Post by superfrank »

giobox wrote: post #93

Seattle residents, is this ever coming back? > https://livingcomputers.org/ I only found out about this museum during the pandemic sadly, never visited when it was open.

No one knows for sure.

The museum was one of Paul Allen's pet projects. The one two punch of his death and then COVID hitting is what shut the museum down.

The building is still there with everything in it (at least it looks that way from the outside), so I guess there's hope. Also, another one of Allen's projects, the Cinerama in Belltown, was also shut down around the same time and that just sold and is now re-opening soon, so I'm hoping we'll see something similar with the computer museum.

Re: Retro Computer Museum

#98

Post by acidburnNSA »

superfrank wrote: post #97
giobox wrote: post #93

Seattle residents, is this ever coming back? > https://livingcomputers.org/ I only found out about this museum during the pandemic sadly, never visited when it was open.

No one knows for sure. The museum was one of Paul Allen's pet projects. The one two punch of his death and then COVID hitting is what shut the museum down. The building is still there with everything in it (at least it looks that way from the outside), so I guess there's hope. Also, another one of Allen's projects, the Cinerama in Belltown, was also shut down around the same time and that just sold and is now re-open…

I went right before the pandemic and it was truly awesome, so let's hope so! Not sure though.

Re: Retro Computer Museum

#99

Post by qiqitori »

Repost from an earlier comment on a similar story from three months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34832544

This feels like a shameless plug, sorry. I sometimes do volunteer work at a (mostly personal) computer museum in Tokyo. https://www.dream-library.org/museum/index.html

If anyone nearby is reading this, please consider coming by sometime :)

(You need a reservation. Not everything works. In fact most machines don't work probably. It's not super fancy like the Living Computer Museum was. There's a lot of stuff on the floor. It'll probably move to a bigger place soon so that'll get better probably. It's not particularly cheap; there's a yearly fee (no auto-renewals) and a per-visit fee. You need a reservation and in order to get it you probably need to be fluent in Japanese. You probably also need to be fluent in Japanese to have a good time there because I'm not sure if the owner speaks English.)

So far I fixed: ZX81, VIC-20, PET 2001, various MSX machines. (See my blog for details :p)

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