Computer History Museum
Encyclopedia
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...
established in 1996 in Mountain View, California
Mountain View, California
-Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south...
, USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The Museum is dedicated to preserving and presenting the stories and artifacts of the information age
Information Age
The Information Age, also commonly known as the Computer Age or Digital Age, is an idea that the current age will be characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously...
, and exploring the computing revolution and its impact on our lives.
History
The museum's origins date to 1968 when Gordon BellGordon Bell
C. Gordon Bell is an American computer engineer and manager. An early employee of Digital Equipment Corporation 1960–1966, Bell designed several of their PDP machines and later became Vice President of Engineering 1972-1983, overseeing the development of the VAX...
began a quest for a historical collection and, at that same time, others were looking to preserve the computer Whirlwind
Whirlwind (computer)
The Whirlwind computer was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is the first computer that operated in real time, used video displays for output, and the first that was not simply an electronic replacement of older mechanical systems...
. The resulting Museum Project had its first exhibit in 1975; located in a converted coat closet in a DEC
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
lobby. In 1978 the museum, now The Digital Computer Museum (TDCM), moved to a larger DEC lobby in Marlboro, Mass. Maurice Wilkes presented the first lecture at TDCM in 1979 – the presentation of such lectures has continued to the present time.
TDCM incorporated as The Computer Museum
The Computer Museum, Boston
The Computer Museum was a Boston, Massachusetts museum that opened in 1979 and operated in three different locations until 1999. It was once referred to as TCM and is sometimes called the Boston Computer Museum....
(TCM) in 1982. In 1984 TCM moved to Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, locating on Museum Wharf.
In 1996/1997 The TCM History Center (TCMHC) in Silicon Valley was established; a site at Moffet Field was provided by NASA (an old building that was previously the Naval Base furniture store) and a large number of artifacts were shipped there from TCM.
In 1999 TCMHC incorporated and TCM ceased operation, shipping its remaining artifacts to TCMHC in 2000. The name TCM had been retained by the Boston Museum of Science so, in 2000, the name TCMHC was changed to Computer History Museum (CHM).
In 2003 CHM opened its new building (previously occupied by Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
), at 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd in Mountain View, California
Mountain View, California
-Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south...
, to the public.
Current
The Computer History Museum claims to house the largest and most significant collection of computing artifacts in the world (the Heinz Nixdorf Museum, Paderborn, Germany, makes similar claims). This includes many rare or one-of-a-kind objects such as a Cray-1 supercomputerCray-1
The Cray-1 was a supercomputer designed, manufactured, and marketed by Cray Research. The first Cray-1 system was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976, and it went on to become one of the best known and most successful supercomputers in history...
as well as a Cray-2
Cray-2
The Cray-2 was a four-processor ECL vector supercomputer made by Cray Research starting in 1985. It was the fastest machine in the world when it was released, replacing the Cray Research X-MP designed by Steve Chen in that spot...
, Cray-3
Cray-3
The Cray-3 was a vector supercomputer intended to be Cray Research's successor to the Cray-2. The system was to be the first major application of gallium arsenide semiconductors in computing. The project was not considered a success, and the parent company in Minneapolis decided to end work on the...
, the Utah teapot
Utah teapot
The Utah teapot or Newell teapot is a 3D computer model which has become a standard reference object in the computer graphics community. It is a mathematical model of an ordinary teapot of fairly simple shape, which appears solid, cylindrical and partially convex...
, the 1969 Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus, formerly Neiman-Marcus, is a luxury specialty retail department store operated by the Neiman Marcus Group in the United States. The company is headquartered in the One Marcus Square building in Downtown Dallas, Texas, and competes with other department stores such as Saks Fifth...
Kitchen Computer
Honeywell 316
The Honeywell 316 was a popular 16-bit minicomputer built by Honeywell starting in 1969. It is part of the Series 16 which includes the Models 116, 316, 416, 516 and 716. They were commonly used for data acquisition and control, remote message concentration, clinical laboratory systems and...
, an Apple I
Apple I
The original Apple Computer, also known retroactively as the Apple I, or Apple-1, is a personal computer released by the Apple Computer Company in 1976. They were designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak. Wozniak's friend Steve Jobs had the idea of selling the computer...
, and an example of the first generation of Google's racks of custom-designed web server
Web server
Web server can refer to either the hardware or the software that helps to deliver content that can be accessed through the Internet....
s. The collection comprises nearly 90,000 objects, photographs and films, as well as 4000 feet (1,219.2 m) of cataloged documentation and several hundred gigabytes of software.
The museum's 25000 square feet (2,322.6 m²) exhibit "Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing," opened to the public on January 13, 2011.
The museum has two additional exhibits highlighting important milestones from the history of computing: "Mastering the Game," a history of computer chess and a Difference Engine
Difference engine
A difference engine is an automatic, mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions. Both logarithmic and trigonometric functions can be approximated by polynomials, so a difference engine can compute many useful sets of numbers.-History:...
designed by Charles Babbage
Charles Babbage
Charles Babbage, FRS was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer...
in the 1840s and constructed by the Science Museum
Science Museum (London)
The Science Museum is one of the three major museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is part of the National Museum of Science and Industry. The museum is a major London tourist attraction....
.
Former media executive John Hollar was appointed CEO of The Computer History Museum in July 2008.
See also
- Vintage Computer FestivalVintage Computer FestivalThe Vintage Computer Festival is an international event celebrating the history of computing. It is held annually in various locations around the United States and various countries internationally...
held annually at The Computer History Museum - Computer museums
- History of computingHistory of computingThe history of computing is longer than the history of computing hardware and modern computing technology and includes the history of methods intended for pen and paper or for chalk and slate, with or without the aid of tables...
- History of computer scienceHistory of computer scienceThe history of computer science began long before the modern discipline of computer science that emerged in the twentieth century, and hinted at in the centuries prior...
Further reading
- Bell, Gordon (2011). Out of a Closet: The Early Years of the Computer
[x * Museum]. Microsoft Technical Report MSR-TR-2011-44.
External links
- Computer History Museum website.
- Computer History Museum videos.
- Catalog Search - Search for the museum collections
- WAVE report on the Computer History Museum, with many photographs of interesting artifacts. Note: many links on this site do fail because their letter case does not match that of the destination file. Try altering the URL to access the file's directory instead.