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The Interim Computer Museum

icm.museum

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Re: The Interim Computer Museum

#6

Post by ChrisArchitect »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #5

That's some haphazard site but fits with the museum theme I guess! Nice to hear about the effort. Fond memories of brief visit in the before times.

A recent post from 6 months ago about the Computer Museum and lots of anecdotes and discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34831880

Re: The Interim Computer Museum

#7

Post by boffinAudio »

Related to this, I am a Volunteer Curator at the Retro Gaming Museum, here in Vienna [1] - and we recently added a Retro 8-bit section, with Oric Atmos, Amstrad CPC6128 and ZX Spectrum 128+ machines for folks to play with, interact with, etc.

The machines are there to showcase the 10-LINE BASIC Competition [2], which is one of the most entertaining things around, if you're a programmer .. basically the challenge is to write the best game you can, in only 10 lines of BASIC. Astonishingly, some of the entries that have won in the last few years are extraordinarily complete - a Lunar Lander clone, Pacman, etc. (The fact that my personal favourite machine, the Atmos, has won it over all the other machines in the past few years in a row is also quite a tickle. Makes one wonder, what would have happened if the Oric had gotten the attention it deserved back in the day..)

We can't write software like this on modern platforms, folks. Something went wrong! (OS vendors removing compilers, grr..)

All of these machines have modern USB storage now! This means that a machine, in the case of the Atmos, with 48K RAM - has a couple GIGS of storage! Every bit of software ever released for the thing, and still gigs and gigs of space left. :) This is kind of hilarious.

I also have an 8-bit Retro Hub [3], which I will set up some time soon with all the variety of machines it supports - a multiplayer networking platform with full compatability for C64/Atari/Atmos/AppleII machines to use in pitched battle!

The exhibit has been very fruitful - I watched some kids come into the room over the weekend, express disdain for the 'oldness' of the machines, but .. a few hours later .. they were still there, laughing and engaged and just as interested as ever. Took me way back, 40 years, to my first days doing pretty much the same thing, only it was a Computer Age store, and the machines were new. Its very fun to CTRL-C into BASIC and show the kids the code .. I dare say some minds were blown.

If you're in Vienna, stop by and check it out - would love to hear from other HN'ers ..

[1] - https://computermuseum.at/

[2] - https://gkanold.wixsite.com/homeputerium

[3] - https://8bit-unity.com/?page_id=551

Re: The Interim Computer Museum

#8

Post by quercusa »

boffinAudio wrote: post #7

Related to this, I am a Volunteer Curator at the Retro Gaming Museum, here in Vienna [1] - and we recently added a Retro 8-bit section, with Oric Atmos, Amstrad CPC6128 and ZX Spectrum 128+ machines for folks to play with, interact with, etc. The machines are there to showcase the 10-LINE BASIC Competition [2], which is one of the most entertaining things around, if you're a programmer .. basically the challenge is t…

Can you say a little bit about the storage system on the Atmos? How does a system that old access that much storage?

Re: The Interim Computer Museum

#9

Post by markdeloura »

ddougj wrote: post #2

New effort by someone involved with the now-closed Living Computers museum in Seattle.

So happy to hear it. The closed-not-closed state of LCM was exasperating for several years and I know several groups of folks were trying to engage to bring it back to life. It was such a great site for informal learning and did a good job of highlighting the region's contributions to computing. Seattle needs a computer museum!
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