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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

#61

Post by JohnFen »

bap wrote: post #45
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.

Even in large metro areas, there tend to be small specialty museums. The problem is that if you don't know they're there already, you're not likely to find them.

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

#62

Post by mapmeld »

esafak wrote: post #54

Why is it shutting down? I scanned the article but failed to find the reason.

I don't think anyone has a solid public answer about why they didn't reopen with other museums after 2020. It might be too costly, people leaving the organization, etc. to the point that the board didn't think it could reopen.

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

#63

Post by VonGuard »

KerrAvon wrote: post #52
linguae wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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…

It's definitely too late for LCM -- the heirs don't care about the societal value and are parting it out. It's gone. It'd be super cool if CHM added a living computers wing. They've done a few nice restorations of some large machines, but it's not really the same as something like making a few terminals connected to a PDP-10 directly available to the public. Or some of the early, weird PCs, Unix boxes, Lisp machines.

The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment in Oakland has all-playable exhibitions of home computer and console games on original hardware. You can play something on the C64, Atari 800 or Sega Genesis, for example.

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

#65

Post by foldor »

RobotToaster wrote: post #57
walterbell wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just billionaires. Gov-funded Ontario Science Centre, which helped to motivate thousands of science museums globally since 1969, hosting 50 million visitors, is being shut down, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40752904

I'm guessing covid lockdowns crashed their visitor numbers?

Unfortunately not in this case. It's a kind of political issue right now with the current provincial government, and it's looking a lot like greed got in the way since it is in a prime location.

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

#66

Post by msisk6 »

bap wrote: post #45
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.

Yes, very much so. Some of the interesting small rural museums across the western US I've been to include:

* Museum of the Fur Trade near Chadron, Nebraska * The Santa Fe Trail Center near Larned, Kansas * Ash Fork Route 66 Museum in Ash Fork, Arizona * National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum in Leadville, Colorado * American Windmill Museum in Lubbock, Texas * Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum near Ashland, Nebraska

The rural US has many local museums and most are surprisingly well done and very informative.

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

#67

Post by cpcallen »

slashdave wrote: post #55
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…

Are you calling the exploratorium a "large theme park of a museum"? Haven't been to the new venue, but it is anything besides commercial. https://www.exploratorium.edu/

I would. The new building is huge and tickets are $30 for kids and $40 for adults (though I suspect that many of the visitors get discounted or free admission because their employers are corporate sponsors). It's still one of the most wonderful places in the world but it's a world away from the hundreds of small local museums in the UK which might charge as little as £2 to visit a handful of rooms displaying e.g. artifacts telling the history of the local area.

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

#69

Post by esafak »

cdchn wrote: post #56
esafak wrote: post #54

Why is it shutting down? I scanned the article but failed to find the reason.

Estate liquidation.

I can't imagine they ran out of money, so I speculate that the executors simply did not want to maintain it.

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

#70

Post by CamperBob2 »

djmips wrote: post #30
rbanffy wrote: post #18

It sickens me something like this is happening to this unique museum. I knew it was a matter of time, but, still, it’s a tragedy that’s hard to comprehend.

[flagged]

Charitably, you can blame HN's (intentionally?) poor UI design, placing tiny up and down arrows right next to each other so that it's easy to hit the wrong one.
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