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Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

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Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#41

Post by ghaff »

TMWNN wrote: post #27
sterlind wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why is she doing this? for the money, or out of some form of spite?

I doubt she hates her late brother, any more than any widow who sells off or throws away her late husband's computer collection after his death (which occurs so, so often that it is probably the normal outcome after the collector's death, as opposed to an exception) hates him. It's disinterest.

People get rid of most of the stuff that they inherit, even if it's a "collection" that the relative cared a lot about--especially if it's worth a significant amount of money.

Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#42

Post by thriftwy »

One thing I didn't notice when travelling to Bay Area is thriving small museum ecosystem.

Apparently in the US they prefer to run museums like commercial venues, so either it's a large theme park of a museum, or not at all. I see the news where houses of very notable people like Ray Bradbury[1] sold and scrapped - elsewhere they'd be made a local prodigy of a "house-museum".

1. https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-ray-bradbu...

Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#43

Post by spaceguillotine »

Paul Allen sure didn't have great foresight for post death. First Cinerama and now the computer museum. The current sentiment with seattle lifers is that he used Seattle as a playground and didn't actually care about the longevity.

EMP now MoPop just keeps hanging on by a thread as well and has gone through lots of turmoil.

Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#44

Post by linguae »

thriftwy wrote: post #42

One thing I didn't notice when travelling to Bay Area is thriving small museum ecosystem. Apparently in the US they prefer to run museums like commercial venues, so either it's a large theme park of a museum, or not at all. I see the news where houses of very notable people like Ray Bradbury[1] sold and scrapped - elsewhere they'd be made a local prodigy of a "house-museum". 1. https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcop…

(Disclaimer: I am a member of the Computer History Museum.)

We have the Computer History Museum in Mountain View (https://computerhistory.org/). While unfortunately visitors are not allowed to touch the equipment unlike the Living Computers Museum in Seattle, this is still a wonderful place for people to learn about the history of computing.

In addition, the Computer History Museum has many events, often free, where pioneers of computing are invited to give talks about their work. I’ve been to events that celebrated the Xerox Alto, Smalltalk, the Apple Lisa, and the original Apple Macintosh. I’ve met Dan Ingalls (Smalltalk), Charles Simonyi (Bravo and Microsoft Word), Marshall Kirk McKusick (BSD), and Donald Knuth at the Computer History Museum, and I’ve seen Adele Goldberg (Smalltalk), Jean Louis Gassee (Apple, Be), and even Steve Wozniak in attendance. It’s an amazing privilege being able to have casual conversations with people who have profoundly shaped society.

It’s truly a blessing that we have this important resource in Silicon Valley and that there is a stream of donors who help keep this museum alive. I wish the Living Computers Museum in Seattle had the same type of leadership the Computer History Museum has, but barring any last-minute interventions it may be too late to save that museum.

Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#45

Post by bap »

thriftwy wrote: post #42

One thing I didn't notice when travelling to Bay Area is thriving small museum ecosystem. Apparently in the US they prefer to run museums like commercial venues, so either it's a large theme park of a museum, or not at all. I see the news where houses of very notable people like Ray Bradbury[1] sold and scrapped - elsewhere they'd be made a local prodigy of a "house-museum". 1. https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcop…

I think you might find that the larger metropolitan areas are as you say. As one gets away from the coasts and into more rural areas you'll find smaller museums. Museums that are very bespoke and/or focused on a narrower curation target, etc.

Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#46

Post by syntheticnature »

thriftwy wrote: post #42

One thing I didn't notice when travelling to Bay Area is thriving small museum ecosystem. Apparently in the US they prefer to run museums like commercial venues, so either it's a large theme park of a museum, or not at all. I see the news where houses of very notable people like Ray Bradbury[1] sold and scrapped - elsewhere they'd be made a local prodigy of a "house-museum". 1. https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcop…

Some of this relates to being able to pay staff; there are some house-museums about, but they tend to collapse all too readily as it turns out it's mostly someone's passion project -- just like this, but at a smaller scale.

Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#47

Post by romwell »

Oh no! What a crying shame.

This was one of my favorite museums in the world, probably with no analogues.

When I interned in Microsoft in 2014, I got to experience Seattle — and the Living Computer Museum was one of the highlights of that experience.

Simply being able to walk in and close-up something simple (say, Fibonacci sequence) on a typewriter terminal of the PDP-10 — and then see the typewriter type the output back to you on the same piece of paper was absolute magic (and a part of computing I wish we still had).

Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#48

Post by thriftwy »

linguae wrote: post #44
thriftwy wrote: post #42

One thing I didn't notice when travelling to Bay Area is thriving small museum ecosystem. Apparently in the US they prefer to run museums like commercial venues, so either it's a large theme park of a museum, or not at all. I see the news where houses of very notable people like Ray Bradbury[1] sold and scrapped - elsewhere they'd be made a local prodigy of a "house-museum". 1. https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcop…

(Disclaimer: I am a member of the Computer History Museum.) We have the Computer History Museum in Mountain View ( https://computerhistory.org/ ). While unfortunately visitors are not allowed to touch the equipment unlike the Living Computers Museum in Seattle, this is still a wonderful place for people to learn about the history of computing. In addition, the Computer History Museum has many events, often free, wher…

Exactly the one I meant under the theme park comment - another one is Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Don't get me wrong, both are awesome museums. One thing that caught my attention in CHM is that as you approach the end of century, it becomes an exposition of bright boxes of computer software - quite a change from mechanical marvels of early last century or metal and plastic boxes of mid-century. But overall it's pretty great and totally worth a visit.

Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#50

Post by thriftwy »

syntheticnature wrote: post #46
thriftwy wrote: post #42

One thing I didn't notice when travelling to Bay Area is thriving small museum ecosystem. Apparently in the US they prefer to run museums like commercial venues, so either it's a large theme park of a museum, or not at all. I see the news where houses of very notable people like Ray Bradbury[1] sold and scrapped - elsewhere they'd be made a local prodigy of a "house-museum". 1. https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcop…

Some of this relates to being able to pay staff; there are some house-museums about, but they tend to collapse all too readily as it turns out it's mostly someone's passion project -- just like this, but at a smaller scale.

I imagine they could be donated to local Department of Culture (is it Arts Council in case of Bay Area?) and then staffed by some retiree grannies. Then they will outlive the initial passion. Bureaucratic systems have their disadvantaged but they're good at keeping things going on.
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