Computer Museums

[Andrew Armstrong]

Okay, I meant to post this last week (but went away for a week). I visited the UK's National Museum of Computing which has been ongoing and hopes to finally open all it's proposed rooms by September. I might volunteer there, who knows.

Anyway, I'm looking to know if anyone can list computing museums I don't know of. I've got a ulterior motive of going to contact them to see if they can accept material from video game developers, or video game or computer collectors too. But also means I'd know of them if I ever visited that country and had time to go

Pictures and thoughts on visits there would be most interesting regardless!

[t3hfr3ak]

you know... I would like to know aswell, especially in the New York/ Niagara Area. I'm sick of seeing Stamp museums and crap like that!

[RedWolf]

Looks awesome, Andrew.  Thanks for sharing the pictures of your trip.  Now that I think of it, one room in one of your museum pictures looks kinda like my Garage (except most of my stuff isn't that old).

The only computer museums I know about are the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.  And I think there is one in Kansas or something, but I don't remember.  Obviously Google will help you find them better than I can.

I visited the Computer History Museum back in 2006, and it was pretty cool, but I didn't get a chance to tour their "Visual Storage" collection, which is where most of their stuff is kept.  I was disappointed that I had to miss it, but I'll probably be back some day.

[Andrew Armstrong]

Thanks Benj, I did know of that one obviously - any pictures of it you can share of it?

Here are a few more:

http://www.movingimage.us/
Moving Image museum usually has an exhibit it seems (and at least an online one), I'm not sure right now though. Also doing some research into "digital media" - so involving games.

http://www.museum-of-computing.org.uk/
Museum of Computing is currently in storage, since the location they were hosted at the rent ended on (which they were not involved in paying, it was rented by a University hosting the museum). It's yet to be seen what will happen, and I've not visited yet (didn't know until after it had closed!)

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/
The Science Museum has a small collection and is somewhat forced to hold a few very large pieces. I've yet to go, but the exhibits are definitely "hands off" behind glass in any case.

Travelling exhibitions would be interesting to know if anyone knows of any.

[RedWolf]

Hmm.. pictures.  I'll have to dig through them and let me know.

If I don't find any, please remind me about it.  I'm a little scatterbrained lately because there's a lot going on around here these days.

[RedWolf]

By the way, I split the topic concerning Fred's arcade into a new topic in the Classic Gaming section.  You can find it there.

[Konata]

Do you think emulators hurt computer museums? With the quality of emulators today one doesn't HAVE to got to a museum to experience the computers, the computers come to the people. Sure you don't get perfect accuracy or being able to touch it, but it's cheaper than the plane tickets to get to some of these museums.

[Andrew Armstrong]

Emulators are important, but not the be all and end all of physical emulation. MAME cabinets for instance are still much more valued then just the MAME emulator itself.

There is a good tactile feel to actually playing with the original hardware, although I must admit I've not been able to play a PDP or pong or anything. There was something to playing Tic Tac Toe on a very old machine which was much more interesting then doing it on an emulator - for a start, the output of win, loss, draw, errors or cheating had to be printed out on tape!

[RedWolf]

Do you think emulators hurt computer museums? With the quality of emulators today one doesn't HAVE to got to a museum to experience the computers, the computers come to the people. Sure you don't get perfect accuracy or being able to touch it, but it's cheaper than the plane tickets to get to some of these museums.

I think the physical "feel" of the computer hardware is very important to the user experience when using a vintage computer.  There's something about seeing the housing, using the (usually crappy) keyboard, flipping the disks, hearing the sounds of its drive or its fan. 

Here's a big reason computer emulators don't threaten museums: most vintage computers run mostly non-game / productivity software that is so egregiously obsolete that not many people would emulate it at home.  That means most people go to museums to see the actual hardware itself.

[palad]

There's the Topeka Computing Museum in Kansas - http://www.gateman.com/museum/

Don't know anything else about it, unfortunately.

[Andy]

Dont forget the new "Center of Computing History" which is near Cambridge, UK. http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/ Ive been a couple of times and have helped out on a few things. Ive also donated some items to them. Some of their gear has been in the TV program The IT Crowd.

There is also "Retro Computer Museum" which will be based near Leicester, UK. http://www.retrocomputermuseum.co.uk/

[Andrew Armstrong]

Yeah, I've been in contact with both of them Andy saw the RCM guys today actually.

The Topeka one I'll investigate, thanks for the lead palad (If anyone's visited it, give me a shout or post here ).

I'm still looking for museums or archives in eastern countries - Asia / Australasia region, it's difficult finding stuff there due to the language barrier, but I am sure there must be at least a privately run one somewhere in Japan!

[RedWolf]

If I ever started my own computer museum, I'd probably hire Andrew as the curator.  Too bad you live in the UK, Andrew. 

[Andrew Armstrong]

Haha, neat Yeah, there's a lot of great USA based places actually. I'd not mind a job at the Internet Archive in fact, if I could afford to move, could get somewhere to stay in San Francisco, could get the green card, etc. etc. etc.

Not been able to visit any of the places in America, sadly. Will have to plan to do it one time.

[evank]

Old thread, new information .... we have a computer museum here in New Jersey, USA.

Our museum is run by a user group called MARCH -- "Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists".  Currently we have exhibits devoted to minicomputers, homebrew/SBC computers, and microcomputers.  We also have an exhibit about computer developments at the former U.S. Army Evans Signal Lab, which existed at our venue before it closed and became a museum.

Unlike most museums, we strive to get the computers running again, for your enjoyment!!!

We're open every Sunday from 1pm - 4pm and other times by appointment.

Our museum is hosted at the larger InfoAge Science Center (www.infoage.org).

- Evan