Retro Computer Museum • Hacker News Board

Re: Retro Computer Museum

#101

Post by taylorfinley » Thu, May 18, 2023, 2:39 AM UTC

My house just outside of Portland Oregon kind of resembles a vintage computing museum. I’m moving back to my rainforest off-grid electronics-destroying compound in Hawaii and can’t in good conscious bring any of my collection to rust away out there. (None of my buildings are anything like climate controlled)

I’m planning on selling what I can for my kiddos college/travel funds, but will have a bunch of stuff left over: if anyone knows of a good local place to donate some ancient hardware I’d love to hear about it.

Re: Retro Computer Museum

#102

Post by sincarne » Thu, May 18, 2023, 5:30 AM UTC

aardvark179 wrote: post #8

wdfx wrote: post #2

If you're in the UK, see also https://www.tnmoc.org/ https://this-museum-is-not-obsolete.com/ https://www.themicromuseum.org/

There’s also https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/ in Cambridge

Highly recommended. They used to have a gaming-focused satellite in the Grand Arcade. It’s gone, now, but I heard a rumour they may bring it back in the summer.

Re: Retro Computer Museum

#103

Post by submeta » Thu, May 18, 2023, 9:53 AM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #3

Near my hometown in NL there’s a similar place, the Home Computer Museum and just like the one on Leicester they turn the computers on with games and BASIC and foxpro and protracker running and it’s just a delight. The collection is huge , I was pretty impressed. Went there with my kids the other day and it was just great. Worth a detour! https://www.homecomputermuseum.nl/en/

This is awesome! Thanks for sharing!

Re: Retro Computer Museum

#104

Post by danw1979 » Thu, May 18, 2023, 11:58 AM UTC

omneity wrote: post #4

If you're in Berlin, you can visit this one [0]. Has some rare historical gems including an original arcade cabinet for space invaders, as well as some experimental stuff like the famed PainStation. [1] [0]: https://www.computerspielemuseum.de/ [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PainStation

I loved this place, even seeing my first computer (Schneider CPC) behind a glass case and feeling old as a result.

Re: Retro Computer Museum

#105

Post by signalToNose » Thu, May 18, 2023, 3:36 PM UTC

omneity wrote: post #4

If you're in Berlin, you can visit this one [0]. Has some rare historical gems including an original arcade cabinet for space invaders, as well as some experimental stuff like the famed PainStation. [1] [0]: https://www.computerspielemuseum.de/ [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PainStation

There are also some awesome replicas of early computer built by Konrad Zuse in the German museum of technology.

Re: Retro Computer Museum

#106

Post by superfrank » Fri, May 19, 2023, 12:34 AM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #98

superfrank wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I did too! It was amazing.

We had a friend in town who I went with and my wife had to work that day, so I told her we'd go back another time... Not sure I'll ever be able to keep that promise.

Re: Retro Computer Museum

#107

Post by acidburnNSA » Fri, May 19, 2023, 12:39 AM UTC

superfrank wrote: post #106

acidburnNSA wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I did too! It was amazing. We had a friend in town who I went with and my wife had to work that day, so I told her we'd go back another time... Not sure I'll ever be able to keep that promise.

After my visit, the next time I visited my mom, I decided to finally recycle the old Gateway 2000, considering that the museum had lots of them and that they'd be good forever stewards of them. Now I'm not so sure.

Re: Retro Computer Museum

#108

Post by lewisflude » Sat, May 20, 2023, 9:54 PM UTC

wdfx wrote: post #2

If you're in the UK, see also https://www.tnmoc.org/ https://this-museum-is-not-obsolete.com/ https://www.themicromuseum.org/

As a resident of Ramsgate, definitely feel lucky to be a few streets down from both TMINO + Micro Museum and very cool to see a shout out here! Well worth doing both in a day as they're next to each other.