CHM was a fun visit in person, but type "TRS-80" into their online search catalog and you get:
NO RESULTS FOUND, PLEASE TRY BROADENING YOUR SEARCH OR SUBMITTING A NEW KEYWORD
I mean, come on folks, you need to up your game.
Computer History Museum Launches Digital Portal to Its Collection
31–40 of 40 posts
Re: Computer History Museum Launches Digital Portal to Its Collection
#32I'm a fan of CHM. That said there collections have (understandably) a rather Silicon-Valley-legacy-centric view of, erm, computer history. You'll find little mention, for example, of these tantalizing early mentions of alternative computer architectures (with pictures!) in NSA's predecessor OP-20-G, as posed alongside the then-nascent von Neumann architecture (also covered). https://www.governmentattic.org/8docs/NSA-…
There's solid representation of Boston and DEC in particular, for example, as well as IBM, so not all /that/ "Silicon-Valley-legacy-centric".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Computer_Museum,_Boston#Co...
Re: Computer History Museum Launches Digital Portal to Its Collection
#33I'm a fan of CHM. That said there collections have (understandably) a rather Silicon-Valley-legacy-centric view of, erm, computer history. You'll find little mention, for example, of these tantalizing early mentions of alternative computer architectures (with pictures!) in NSA's predecessor OP-20-G, as posed alongside the then-nascent von Neumann architecture (also covered). https://www.governmentattic.org/8docs/NSA-…
There's solid representation of Boston and DEC in particular, for example, as well as IBM, so not all /that/ "Silicon-Valley-legacy-centric". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Computer_Museum,_Boston#Co...
Actually that link was helpful, thanks. The fact that CHM's early progenitor was called Digital Computer Museum in a 1979 out of Boston actually explains a lot. They were fundamentally distinguishing lineage from the likes of differentia analyzers, and (to a more muddled degree), from Rapid Selectors / Rapid Comparators.
Re: Computer History Museum Launches Digital Portal to Its Collection
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
A similar experience for me was the Connections Museum in Seattle: I came just after opening, and time flew by such that I was surprised when they told me they were closing up
I was able to go to the Living Computer Museum and I got there when they first opened and wound up staying until closing time. I was just so into all the stuff there :-)
I hope to visit the ICM on my next trip to Seattle, though I suspect that won't be as grand as the original Living Computer Museum
Re: Computer History Museum Launches Digital Portal to Its Collection
#35CHM is great, but I still lament the closure and liquidation of Paul Allen's Living Computers Museum + Labs, which I never got to visit.
Re: Computer History Museum Launches Digital Portal to Its Collection
#36CHM employee here. Always great to see CHM on HN. Glad folks are excited about this -- as are we! There's so much cool stuff in the Collection.
Does the digital portal also link to emulators (and documentation) for historical systems? I've always enjoyed things like:
https://smalltalkzoo.computerhistory.org
for example. Most of these systems were things that humans interacted with in some way, and that interaction is hard to get from static images. Watching a video of Larry Tesler demonstrating the Alto is great - and even better if you can turn around and try an emulated Alto in your browser (of course operational hardware would be even better.)
Re: Computer History Museum Launches Digital Portal to Its Collection
#37CHM is great, but I still lament the closure and liquidation of Paul Allen's Living Computers Museum + Labs, which I never got to visit.
I just read (see below) that LCM had (among other things) a working PLATO terminal. (Was it connected to a live PLATO system? looks like it, possibly.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_(computer_system)
https://www.geekwire.com/sponsor-post/get-wonderful-toys-acq...
Re: Computer History Museum Launches Digital Portal to Its Collection
#38I'm hoping they digitize some of the older archives they have in storage.
For example, they apparently have 23 U-Matic tapes of the HOPL (History of Programming Languages) conference in 1978 [1].
The proceedings [2] describe one of the tapes that don't make it into the transcribed proceedings:
> The after-dinner speeches at the conference banquet were devoted to humorous reminiscences and anecdotes about the languages and events during their development. The banquet anecdotes are not included in this volume because, although they are humorous to hear, the voice inflections make a big difference, and they are not necessarily amusing to read.
[1] https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10269512... [2] https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.1145/800025
Re: Computer History Museum Launches Digital Portal to Its Collection
#39I have come across (and enjoyed) many of the videos [1] they have posted to YouTube. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@ComputerHistory
Same! They are so good.
Visiting it a few weeks ago was amazing too!
Re: Computer History Museum Launches Digital Portal to Its Collection
#40This place is great, but my work had a function here and I walked around with one of our juniors and never have I felt so old. The pure astonishment and confusion when looking at a “floppy disk” aged me instantly.
I own things that are in the museum which makes me feel old too!