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The Computer Museum of America reclamation project

computer-museum.org

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Re: The Computer Museum of America reclamation project

#31

Post by chiph »

plapsley wrote: post #15

I just came back from the The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) in the UK at Bletchley Park. It was fantastic. They have a wide variety of working systems that you can play with, from home computers to mainframes, as well as Bombes and the Colossus (used to break the Lorenz cipher), and WITCH. Very cool. https://www.tnmoc.org/ Quasi-related: If you're into old telephone switching equipment (some of which is comput…

I regret not having the time to stop by the Connections Museum in Seattle when I was there. They're working on a new museum in Denver.

Their YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@ConnectionsMuseum

Re: The Computer Museum of America reclamation project

#32

Post by jleyank »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

It amazes me how difficult it is to keep computer museums alive. Like Boston used to have a great computer museum in the 1980s back when Boston had a computer industry. I guess though it is hard to keep a PDP-10 alive today and it's not impressive to kids today to play LUNAR LANDER on a VT-102.

I've always thought "computers" was an odd discipline as it had virtually no interest in its history. Yeah, they were large, slow blobs, but without all of the old machines we'd have no hacking, and no new machines (or marketplace). Individuals might have interest in individual machines, but compared to things like history, virtually nothing at scale. Which is sad as the world's becoming "computers".

Re: The Computer Museum of America reclamation project

#33

Post by AdamN »

operatingthetan wrote: post #10
Animats wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s rare for museums to keep artefacts operational. The Living Computer Museum tried until the money ran out. Here's the auction list from when the Living Computer Museum was liquidated.[1] [1] https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/firsts-history-computing-...

Paul Allen did not structure the financials for it to succeed, which is unfortunate. I got to go there once and it was amazing.

His sister (at his behest??) decided to lean into a smaller number of projects for his money. It does seem like a miss that they couldn't keep it going. There's enough money in Seattle that it should have been doable with the right charismatic leader and fundraising.

Re: The Computer Museum of America reclamation project

#35

Post by syntheticnature »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #25

I feel like there are probably a lot of users on HN who have access to old data such as old BBS archives and stuff which would be appreciated by archive.org or Archive Team.

I know some of that found its way to http://textfiles.com/ whose owner is associated with the Archive Team -- though it's focused on text rather than executables, of course.

Re: The Computer Museum of America reclamation project

#36

Post by BoxOfRain »

somat wrote: post #21
k310 wrote: post #3

Sigh, I offered cool IMSAI gear with loads of cards to a computer museum, and they preferred "autographed" stuff, "prestige" items, negating the pioneer spirit of those of us who soldered countless thousands of parts, sockets and interconnects. Dsigned by Ty Warner, of course) the experience will live with me as long as I live and can instill in younger people that pioneer spirit (perhaps with SBC's and real-world in…

I was watching a video of a guy fixing up an old homemade guitar he found. A well built solid piece, only one that exists in the world. A thing somebody spent real time and effort to create, and nearly worthless. While some soulless factory built item from the same era that sold in the thousands is highly collectable with a price to match. There is a sort of tragedy with these things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=…

Saving this for later, I really love a handmade one-off guitar.

I often wish I had the woodworking chops to build a guitar myself, I have a very specific idea of what I want from a guitar.

Re: The Computer Museum of America reclamation project

#37

Post by justin66 »

AdamN wrote: post #33
operatingthetan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paul Allen did not structure the financials for it to succeed, which is unfortunate. I got to go there once and it was amazing.

His sister (at his behest??) decided to lean into a smaller number of projects for his money. It does seem like a miss that they couldn't keep it going. There's enough money in Seattle that it should have been doable with the right charismatic leader and fundraising.

> His sister (at his behest??) decided to lean into a smaller number of projects for his money.

And didn't do any of the obvious things one might have done if they wanted to preserve the museum's existence, like finding a buyer or starting a foundation. She did the easy thing and scrapped it for parts.

(IIRC she was the executor of his will, trustee of his estate, and the CEO of the company he left most everything to, so she had all the agency she needed to do something responsible with the museum)

Re: The Computer Museum of America reclamation project

#38

Post by ndiddy »

Animats wrote: post #8
rbanffy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all computer museums fail - there are a few that have endured. The one in Mountain View, for instance, is a direct continuation of the one from Boston. A lot of very nice computer collections are parts of bigger ones in larger, less specialised, museums. It’s rare for museums to keep artefacts operational. The ones that still work are usually treated as the big attraction because they demand attention and mainten…

> It’s rare for museums to keep artefacts operational. The Living Computer Museum tried until the money ran out. Here's the auction list from when the Living Computer Museum was liquidated.[1] [1] https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/firsts-history-computing-...

The Living Computer Museum wasn't structurally a museum, it was Paul Allen's collection. Part of running a museum includes having a plan in place that the museum will continue running past the death of one particular billionaire. Allen never did this, so when he died the LCM died with him. It would have been trivial for someone of Allen's wealth and status to get one of his lawyers to set up a legal structure with an endowment that would have allowed the museum to continue to operate indefinitely rather than become a part of his estate. For whatever reason, he chose not to do this.

Re: The Computer Museum of America reclamation project

#39

Post by bariumbitmap »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

It amazes me how difficult it is to keep computer museums alive. Like Boston used to have a great computer museum in the 1980s back when Boston had a computer industry. I guess though it is hard to keep a PDP-10 alive today and it's not impressive to kids today to play LUNAR LANDER on a VT-102.

I know it's not the same as a functioning PDP-10, but the Byte Shop in Jamaica Plain has a functioning Altair 8800 connected to an ADM-3A dumb terminal, among other working computers from the 1970s and 1980s.

https://byteshop.io/

Re: The Computer Museum of America reclamation project

#40

Post by teraflop »

For anyone who finds themselves in the vicinity of Atlanta. I can highly recommend the Mimms Museum of Technology and Art. Which was also formerly called the Computer Museum of America, but AFAIK has no relation to the one in San Diego.

Anyway, it's clearly a labor of love. They have some very cool artifacts from the space program (e.g. a some of the Space Shuttle and Apollo main computers). And a large fraction of the floor space is devoted to a new, very comprehensive exhibit on the history of Apple, with just about every product they ever made plus some internal prototypes.

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