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lisper 2 minutes ago [-]
It is at once obvious and hard for people to internalize that there will come a time in the future when our time will be as far in the past as ancient Rome is to us. We might not be interested in old magazines and artifacts from our grandparent's childhoods, but they will be (at least one hopes). There are so many ways that we ought to be more considerate of future generations, and this is one them. These museums are our Libraries of Alexandria.
PaulHoule 3 days ago [-]
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.
rbanffy 1 days ago [-]
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 maintenance.
I was recently in Bletchley Park, where I saw a partially working Bombe (they only run it partially because of the wear), and their smaller computer museum (there are a lot of machines that are available for visitors to play with) and the one in Cambridge, which has classrooms with BBC micros, as well as many other interesting machines - Suns, SGIs, Amigas, Ataris, Spectrums, and even a Lisa, which had a boot issue.
I have to say the kids in the last two seemed thrilled to play Lemmings on Amigas and Archimedes machines. Not a PDP-1, but still cool.
Animats 4 hours ago [-]
> 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]
Paul Allen did not structure the financials for it to succeed, which is unfortunate. I got to go there once and it was amazing.
ex-aws-dude 4 hours ago [-]
Wow I’m surprised by how high the realized prices are
Who is buying these things? Private collectors?
leoc 52 minutes ago [-]
I think the prices are still really modest if you look at them in perspective. One of the small, irreplaceable stock of surviving PDP-10s could be had for less than the cost of a mediocre used Ferrari.
kev009 4 hours ago [-]
Antiquities and heirlooms can be a good stable investment, the same reason people trade art or watches or guns or cars. Some of these are fun to use without reducing value.
TheOtherHobbes 5 minutes ago [-]
A lot of people had a strong nostalgic attachment to DEC PDPs because they were their first experience of hands-on computing.
So SV always had a community of very wealthy nerds who could afford a used PDP-10 and its insane running and maintenance costs.
But... the community was always very small.
And today, the number of people with that kind of money and a similar nostalgic attachment to increasingly remote history is even smaller.
aleph_minus_one 2 hours ago [-]
> Antiquities and heirlooms can be a good stable investment, the same reason people trade art or watches or guns or cars.
It is only an investment if it (likely) gains yield. Otherwise it is just a means of preservation of value.
kev009 1 hours ago [-]
Most of these things have large categories that are inherently disinflationary. You can't make a new authentic vintage Ferrari. Whether they are fungible is the main problem and case by case. But you generally don't do it to build wealth, it's an expression of it that happens to have yields if taken seriously.
Veai 4 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
detourdog 45 minutes ago [-]
There is Large Scale Systems Museum in Western PA.
Usually these appeal mostly to people in the field. I've tried to take many people to computer museums but generally they aren't interested unless they are software engineers themselves.
49 minutes ago [-]
dboreham 4 hours ago [-]
I suspect this applies to almost all museums.
plapsley 2 hours ago [-]
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 computer-based), the Connections Museum in Seattle is not to be missed.
k310 3 days ago [-]
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 interfaces) and fun times growing up with these gizmos.
I don't see them as museum pieces to be hung on a wall, and guarded. What good does that do in the tech world as opposed to the art world? I recall hearing about the greatest art theft of all time, IIRC, the one at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. [0]
I previously visited that museum, at a time when passive photography was considered harmful (probably a holdover from the Salem Witchcraft Trials, and thoroughly debunked) and got a raft of shit from a curator about having evil photographic gear in my possession.
Since I never knew his name I never thought to look up whether he was one of the guards bound and gagged in the robbery.
More to the point, "treasures" ( and these are treasures) are for fools to hoard, and you can learn from mere observation, whereas the old gizmos are still "playable"
In fact, a few frayed ribbon cables still need replacement.
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.
> they preferred "autographed" stuff, "prestige" items
That’s sad. Maybe other museums would be more enlightened. In the end, unless the museum is well funded by a government grant or something similar, it’ll need to recover costs from tickets, and prestige items are something they can advertise to the muggles.
Keeping these machines running is hard work and, for the most part, unpredictable - they will go down and need maintenance from time to time. These is a constant tension between keeping it operational and keeping it original, as tools, materials, parts, and techniques become unavailable, and replacing parts with modern equivalents is a last resort.
decide1000 4 hours ago [-]
In the Netherlands there is a computer museum with a huge collection. The computers can be used by anyone. Really a great experience for kids these days and adults.
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.
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 maintenance.
I was recently in Bletchley Park, where I saw a partially working Bombe (they only run it partially because of the wear), and their smaller computer museum (there are a lot of machines that are available for visitors to play with) and the one in Cambridge, which has classrooms with BBC micros, as well as many other interesting machines - Suns, SGIs, Amigas, Ataris, Spectrums, and even a Lisa, which had a boot issue.
I have to say the kids in the last two seemed thrilled to play Lemmings on Amigas and Archimedes machines. Not a PDP-1, but still cool.
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-...
Who is buying these things? Private collectors?
So SV always had a community of very wealthy nerds who could afford a used PDP-10 and its insane running and maintenance costs.
But... the community was always very small.
And today, the number of people with that kind of money and a similar nostalgic attachment to increasingly remote history is even smaller.
It is only an investment if it (likely) gains yield. Otherwise it is just a means of preservation of value.
https://www.mact.io/
Rhode Island Computer Museum https://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home
Quasi-related: If you're into old telephone switching equipment (some of which is computer-based), the Connections Museum in Seattle is not to be missed.
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 interfaces) and fun times growing up with these gizmos.
I don't see them as museum pieces to be hung on a wall, and guarded. What good does that do in the tech world as opposed to the art world? I recall hearing about the greatest art theft of all time, IIRC, the one at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. [0]
I previously visited that museum, at a time when passive photography was considered harmful (probably a holdover from the Salem Witchcraft Trials, and thoroughly debunked) and got a raft of shit from a curator about having evil photographic gear in my possession.
Since I never knew his name I never thought to look up whether he was one of the guards bound and gagged in the robbery.
More to the point, "treasures" ( and these are treasures) are for fools to hoard, and you can learn from mere observation, whereas the old gizmos are still "playable"
In fact, a few frayed ribbon cables still need replacement.
UNLESS WE HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO DO SO.
Claude refused to.
[0] https://www.fbi.gov/history/cases-and-criminals/isabella-ste...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngq4Hw4B9J0
That’s sad. Maybe other museums would be more enlightened. In the end, unless the museum is well funded by a government grant or something similar, it’ll need to recover costs from tickets, and prestige items are something they can advertise to the muggles.
Keeping these machines running is hard work and, for the most part, unpredictable - they will go down and need maintenance from time to time. These is a constant tension between keeping it operational and keeping it original, as tools, materials, parts, and techniques become unavailable, and replacing parts with modern equivalents is a last resort.
https://www.homecomputermuseum.nl/en/