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Computer History Museum

January 01, 1970

For the similar British museum, see The National Museum of Computing.

The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact on society.

Computer History Museum
The Computer History Museum's front entrance
Former names
The Computer Museum
Established1996; 28 years ago (1996)
LocationMountain View, California, US
Coordinates37°24′52″N 122°04′37″W / 37.414371°N 122.076817°W / 37.414371; -122.076817
TypeHistory and Technology Museum
Collection sizeOver 1 million objects
CEODan'l Lewin
Websitecomputerhistory.org

History edit

The museum's origins date to 1968 when Gordon Bell began a quest for a historical collection and, at that same time, others were looking to preserve the Whirlwind computer. The resulting Museum Project had its first exhibit in 1975, located in a converted coat closet in a DEC lobby. In 1978, the museum, now The Digital Computer Museum (TDCM), moved to a larger DEC lobby in Marlborough, Massachusetts. 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 (TCM) in 1982. In 1984, TCM moved to Boston, locating on Museum Wharf.

In 1996/1997, the TCM History Center (TCMHC) was established; a site at Moffett 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 2002, CHM opened its new building, previously occupied by Silicon Graphics, at 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd in Mountain View, California, to the public.[1][2] The facility was later heavily renovated and underwent a two-year $19 million makeover before reopening in January 2011.[3]

John Hollar, a former media executive, was appointed CEO in July 2008.[4] Dan'l Lewin, a former technology executive, replaced Hollar as CEO in March 2018.[5]

Collections and exhibition space edit

The Computer History Museum claims to house the largest and most significant collection of computing artifacts in the world.[a] This includes many rare or one-of-a-kind objects such as a Cray-1 supercomputer as well as a Cray-2, Cray-3, the Utah teapot, the 1969 Neiman Marcus Kitchen Computer, an Apple I, and an example of the first generation of Google's racks of custom-designed web servers.[7] The collection comprises nearly 90,000 objects, photographs and films, as well as 4,000 ft (1,200 m) of cataloged documentation and several hundred gigabytes of software.

The CHM oral history program conducts video interviews around the history of computing, this includes computer systems, networking, data-processing, memory, and data-storage. There are over 1,000 interviews recorded as of 2021, including panel discussions on the origins of the IBM PC and the hard disk drive, and individual interviews with Joanna Hoffman, Steve Chen, Dame Stephanie Shirley, and Donald Knuth.[8]

The museum's 25,000 sq ft (2,300 m2) exhibit "Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing", opened to the public on January 13, 2011. It covers the history of computing in 20 galleries, from the abacus to the Internet. The entire exhibition is also available online.[9][10][11]

 
Steve Russell, creator of Spacewar!, operating the PDP-1 at the Computer History Museum

On January 28, 2017, the Museum launched a 6,000 sq ft (560 m2) exhibit "Make Software: Change the World!" The exhibit covers how people's lives are transformed by software. Designed for middle schoolers and up, it features multimedia and touchscreen interactives, including a software lab where visitors can explore coding hands-on.[12]

Other exhibits include a restoration of an historic PDP-1 minicomputer, two restored IBM 1401 computers.

An operating difference engine designed by Charles Babbage in the 1840s and constructed by the Science Museum of London was on display until January 31, 2016. It had been on loan since 2008 from its owner, Nathan Myhrvold, a former Microsoft executive.[13]

Software edit

The CHM is also home to an extensive collection of software, curated by Al Kossow, a veteran of Apple Computer whom the museum hired in 2006. Kossow is responsible for preservation and accession of software in the museum, as well as for developing CHM's software-themed exhibitions. Kossow was a contributor to the museum long before being hired full-time and is the proprietor of Bitsavers, a large online repository of historical computer manuals and archived software and firmware acquired from his own collection and through donations from his peers.[14][15][16]

In 2010 the museum began with the collection of source code of important software, beginning with Apple's MacPaint 1.3, written in a combination of assembly language and Pascal and available as download for the public.[17][18]

Many other accessions have followed over the years. APL programming language was received in 2012.[19] Adobe donated the Photoshop 1.0.1 source code in 2013,[20][21] and Postscript in 2022.[22] Microsoft followed with the source code donation of SCP MS-DOS 1.25 and a mixture of Altos MS-DOS 2.11 and TeleVideo PC DOS 2.11 as well as Word for Windows 1.1a under their own license.[23][24] On October 21, 2014, Xerox Alto's source code was released.[25] On January 19, 2023, the Apple Lisa source code was released to the public.[26]

Past exhibits edit

 
A modern recreation of Charles Babbage's difference engine on display at the Computer History Museum

On June 23, 1990, the Walk-Through Computer exhibit opened to help visitors learn how computers work.[27] The interactive exhibit included a desktop computer, a giant monitor, a 25-foot (7.6 m) keyboard, and a 40-inch (1,016 mm) diameter trackball (initially planned to be a "bumper-car sized mouse") used by visitors to control the World Traveler program. In the Software Theater, animation and hardware video is used alongside a video feed of the World Traveler Program to show how computer programs work.[28] This exhibit was closed on August 5, 1995, and re-opened as the Walk-Through Computer 2000 on October 21, 1995, to include an updated monitor, 3D graphics, and more interactive features. One of these features allowed visitors to change the pits imprinted on a giant CD-ROM, and the changes are seen on a monitor.[29]

In 2016 museum had a Liquid Galaxy in the "Going Places: A History of Silicon Valley" exhibit. The exhibit had 20 preselected locations that visitors can fly to on the Liquid Galaxy.[30] An exhibit on the history of autonomous vehicles, from torpedoes to self-driving cars was also on display.

Fellows edit

The CHM Fellow Awards Program honors distinguished technology pioneers for their outstanding merits and significant contributions to the advancement of computing and the evolution of the digital age. The CHM Fellows are men and women 'whose ideas have changed the world [and] affected nearly every human alive today'. The first fellow was Rear Admiral Grace Hopper in 1987. The fellows program has grown to 95 members as of 2023.[31] Fellow nominations are open to the public and are accepted year round.[32]

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ the Heinz Nixdorf Museum, Paderborn, Germany, has more items on display but a far smaller total collection[6]

References edit

  1. ^ Bell, Gordon (2011).
  2. ^ Backgrounder March 1, 2005, at the Wayback Machine Press release on the Computer History Museum
  3. ^ "Computer History Museum's Major New Exhibition Opens". Computer History Museum. from the original on January 3, 2017. Retrieved March 5, 2017.
  4. ^ "John Hollar". Computer History Museum.
  5. ^ "Dan'l Lewin Appointed CEO" (Press release). Computer History Museum. February 27, 2018.
  6. ^ Heinz Nixdorf Museum July 9, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  7. ^ How Google Works David F. Carr, Baseline.com, July 6, 2006
  8. ^ Computer History Museum: Oral History Collection
  9. ^ Wollan, Malia (January 13, 2011). "Computer History Museum Unveils Its Makeover". The New York Times. from the original on December 4, 2016.
  10. ^ Bilton, Nick (January 14, 2010). "Bits Pics: The Computer History Museum". The New York Times. from the original on January 19, 2011. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
  11. ^ "Computer History Museums Major New Exhibition Opens January 12th 2011". Computer History Museum. from the original on January 17, 2011. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
  12. ^ "Computer History Museum Opens New Exhibition "Make Software: Change the World!"". CHM. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  13. ^ Moack, Mark (January 28, 2016). . Mountain View Voice. Archived from the original on March 2, 2016.
  14. ^ "Computer History Museum Names Software Curator". Silicon Valley Business Journal. American City Business Journals. July 12, 2006. Retrieved October 18, 2021.
  15. ^ . Yahoo News. March 1, 2017. Archived from the original on October 18, 2021. Retrieved October 18, 2021.
  16. ^ Scott, Jason. . ASCII. Archived from the original on January 11, 2013.
  17. ^ "MacPaint and QuickDraw Source Code". Computer History Museum. July 20, 2010. from the original on August 22, 2012.
  18. ^ Hesseldahl, Erik (July 20, 2010). . Businessweek.com. Archived from the original on February 9, 2012.
  19. ^ Shustek, Len (October 10, 2012). "The APL Programming Language Source Code". Computer History Museum. from the original on October 7, 2013. Retrieved October 15, 2013.
  20. ^ Bishop, Bryan (February 14, 2013). "Adobe releases original Photoshop source code for nostalgic developers". TheVerge.com. from the original on January 17, 2014. Retrieved October 15, 2013.
  21. ^ Adobe Photoshop Source Code May 7, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
  22. ^ "PostScript: A Digital Printing Press". CHM. December 1, 2022. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  23. ^ Shustek, Len (March 24, 2014). "Microsoft Word for Windows Version 1.1a Source Code". from the original on March 28, 2014. Retrieved March 29, 2014.
  24. ^ Levin, Roy (March 25, 2014). . Official Microsoft Blog. Archived from the original on March 28, 2014. Retrieved March 29, 2014. (NB. While the author and publishers claim the package would include MS-DOS 1.1 and 2.0, it actually contains SCP MS-DOS 1.25 and a mixture of files from Altos MS-DOS 2.11 and TeleVideo PC DOS 2.11.)
  25. ^ McJones, Paul (October 21, 2014). "Xerox Alto Source Code - The Roots of the Modern Personal Computer". Software Gems: The Computer History Museum Historical Source Code Series. Computer History Museum. from the original on January 2, 2015. Retrieved January 8, 2015. With the permission of the Palo Alto Research Center, the Computer History Museum is pleased to make available, for non-commercial use only, snapshots of Alto source code, executables, documentation, font files, and other files from 1975 to 1987.
  26. ^ "The Lisa: Apple's Most Influential Failure". CHM. January 19, 2023. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  27. ^ "Walk Through Computer".
  28. ^ "The Software Theater".
  29. ^ "The Walk Through Computer 2000" (PDF).
  30. ^ . BATW. Archived from the original on January 6, 2017. Retrieved January 6, 2017.
  31. ^ "Hall of Fellows". Computer History Museum. Retrieved December 22, 2022.
  32. ^ "Fellow Awards". CHM. Retrieved October 15, 2023.

Further reading edit

  • Bell, Gordon (April 4, 2011). (PDF) (Technical report). Redmond, Washington: Microsoft Research. MSR-TR-2011-44. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 18, 2012. Retrieved June 22, 2023.

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Computer History Museum.
  • Official website  
  • Computer History Museum's channel on YouTube
  • The Computer Museum Archive

January 01, 1970
computer, history, museum, similar, british, museum, national, museum, computing, museum, computer, history, located, mountain, view, california, museum, presents, stories, artifacts, silicon, valley, information, explores, computing, revolution, impact, socie. For the similar British museum see The National Museum of Computing The Computer History Museum CHM is a museum of computer history located in Mountain View California The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age and explores the computing revolution and its impact on society Computer History MuseumThe Computer History Museum s front entranceFormer namesThe Computer MuseumEstablished1996 28 years ago 1996 LocationMountain View California USCoordinates37 24 52 N 122 04 37 W 37 414371 N 122 076817 W 37 414371 122 076817TypeHistory and Technology MuseumCollection sizeOver 1 million objectsCEODan l LewinWebsitecomputerhistory wbr org Contents 1 History 2 Collections and exhibition space 2 1 Software 2 2 Past exhibits 3 Fellows 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External linksHistory editThe museum s origins date to 1968 when Gordon Bell began a quest for a historical collection and at that same time others were looking to preserve the Whirlwind computer The resulting Museum Project had its first exhibit in 1975 located in a converted coat closet in a DEC lobby In 1978 the museum now The Digital Computer Museum TDCM moved to a larger DEC lobby in Marlborough Massachusetts 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 TCM in 1982 In 1984 TCM moved to Boston locating on Museum Wharf In 1996 1997 the TCM History Center TCMHC was established a site at Moffett 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 2002 CHM opened its new building previously occupied by Silicon Graphics at 1401 N Shoreline Blvd in Mountain View California to the public 1 2 The facility was later heavily renovated and underwent a two year 19 million makeover before reopening in January 2011 3 John Hollar a former media executive was appointed CEO in July 2008 4 Dan l Lewin a former technology executive replaced Hollar as CEO in March 2018 5 Collections and exhibition space editThe Computer History Museum claims to house the largest and most significant collection of computing artifacts in the world a This includes many rare or one of a kind objects such as a Cray 1 supercomputer as well as a Cray 2 Cray 3 the Utah teapot the 1969 Neiman Marcus Kitchen Computer an Apple I and an example of the first generation of Google s racks of custom designed web servers 7 The collection comprises nearly 90 000 objects photographs and films as well as 4 000 ft 1 200 m of cataloged documentation and several hundred gigabytes of software The CHM oral history program conducts video interviews around the history of computing this includes computer systems networking data processing memory and data storage There are over 1 000 interviews recorded as of 2021 including panel discussions on the origins of the IBM PC and the hard disk drive and individual interviews with Joanna Hoffman Steve Chen Dame Stephanie Shirley and Donald Knuth 8 The museum s 25 000 sq ft 2 300 m2 exhibit Revolution The First 2000 Years of Computing opened to the public on January 13 2011 It covers the history of computing in 20 galleries from the abacus to the Internet The entire exhibition is also available online 9 10 11 nbsp Steve Russell creator of Spacewar operating the PDP 1 at the Computer History MuseumOn January 28 2017 the Museum launched a 6 000 sq ft 560 m2 exhibit Make Software Change the World The exhibit covers how people s lives are transformed by software Designed for middle schoolers and up it features multimedia and touchscreen interactives including a software lab where visitors can explore coding hands on 12 Other exhibits include a restoration of an historic PDP 1 minicomputer two restored IBM 1401 computers An operating difference engine designed by Charles Babbage in the 1840s and constructed by the Science Museum of London was on display until January 31 2016 It had been on loan since 2008 from its owner Nathan Myhrvold a former Microsoft executive 13 Software edit The CHM is also home to an extensive collection of software curated by Al Kossow a veteran of Apple Computer whom the museum hired in 2006 Kossow is responsible for preservation and accession of software in the museum as well as for developing CHM s software themed exhibitions Kossow was a contributor to the museum long before being hired full time and is the proprietor of Bitsavers a large online repository of historical computer manuals and archived software and firmware acquired from his own collection and through donations from his peers 14 15 16 In 2010 the museum began with the collection of source code of important software beginning with Apple s MacPaint 1 3 written in a combination of assembly language and Pascal and available as download for the public 17 18 Many other accessions have followed over the years APL programming language was received in 2012 19 Adobe donated the Photoshop 1 0 1 source code in 2013 20 21 and Postscript in 2022 22 Microsoft followed with the source code donation of SCP MS DOS 1 25 and a mixture of Altos MS DOS 2 11 and TeleVideo PC DOS 2 11 as well as Word for Windows 1 1a under their own license 23 24 On October 21 2014 Xerox Alto s source code was released 25 On January 19 2023 the Apple Lisa source code was released to the public 26 Past exhibits edit nbsp A modern recreation of Charles Babbage s difference engine on display at the Computer History Museum On June 23 1990 the Walk Through Computer exhibit opened to help visitors learn how computers work 27 The interactive exhibit included a desktop computer a giant monitor a 25 foot 7 6 m keyboard and a 40 inch 1 016 mm diameter trackball initially planned to be a bumper car sized mouse used by visitors to control the World Traveler program In the Software Theater animation and hardware video is used alongside a video feed of the World Traveler Program to show how computer programs work 28 This exhibit was closed on August 5 1995 and re opened as the Walk Through Computer 2000 on October 21 1995 to include an updated monitor 3D graphics and more interactive features One of these features allowed visitors to change the pits imprinted on a giant CD ROM and the changes are seen on a monitor 29 In 2016 museum had a Liquid Galaxy in the Going Places A History of Silicon Valley exhibit The exhibit had 20 preselected locations that visitors can fly to on the Liquid Galaxy 30 An exhibit on the history of autonomous vehicles from torpedoes to self driving cars was also on display Fellows editThe CHM Fellow Awards Program honors distinguished technology pioneers for their outstanding merits and significant contributions to the advancement of computing and the evolution of the digital age The CHM Fellows are men and women whose ideas have changed the world and affected nearly every human alive today The first fellow was Rear Admiral Grace Hopper in 1987 The fellows program has grown to 95 members as of 2023 31 Fellow nominations are open to the public and are accepted year round 32 1987 Grace Hopper 1995 Jay Wright Forrester 1996 Mitch Kapor Ken Olsen 1997 Dennis Ritchie Ken Thompson John Backus Steve Wozniak 1998 Gene Amdahl Donald Knuth Gordon Moore 1999 Alan Kay John McCarthy Konrad Zuse 2000 Frances E Allen Vint Cerf Tom Kilburn 2001 Fred Brooks Jean E Sammet Maurice Wilkes 2002 Charles Geschke John Warnock John Cocke Carver Mead 2003 Tim Berners Lee David Wheeler Gordon Bell 2004 Erich Bloch Dan Bricklin Bob O Evans Bob Frankston Niklaus Wirth 2005 Paul Baran Douglas Engelbart Alan Shugart Ivan Sutherland 2006 Tony Hoare Bob Kahn Butler Lampson Marvin Minsky 2007 John L Hennessy David Patterson Morris Chang Charles P Thacker 2008 Jean Bartik Robert Metcalfe Linus Torvalds 2009 Federico Faggin Marcian Hoff Stanley Mazor Masatoshi Shima Donald D Chamberlin Robert Everett 2011 Whitfield Diffie Martin Hellman Ralph Merkle Bill Joy 2012 Fernando J Corbato Edward Feigenbaum Steve Furber Sophie Wilson 2013 Edwin Catmull Harry Huskey Robert Taylor 2014 Lynn Conway John Crawford Irwin M Jacobs 2015 Bjarne Stroustrup Charles Bachman Evelyn Berezin 2016 Dave Cutler Lee Felsenstein Phil Moorby 2017 Alan Cooper Margaret Hamilton Larry Roberts Cleve Moler 2018 Dov Frohman Bentchkowsky Dame Stephanie Shirley Guido van Rossum 2019 James Gosling Katherine Johnson Leslie Lamport Louis Pouzin 2021 Ray Ozzie Raj Reddy Lillian Schwartz Andries van Dam 2022 Don Bitzer Adele Goldberg Dan Ingalls Leonard Kleinrock 2023 Rodney Brooks Thomas E Kurtz Barbara LiskovSee also edit nbsp San Francisco Bay Area portal Computer museums History of computing History of computer science Living Computers Museum Labs Vintage Computer Festival held annually at The Computer History MuseumNotes edit the Heinz Nixdorf Museum Paderborn Germany has more items on display but a far smaller total collection 6 References edit Bell Gordon 2011 Backgrounder Archived March 1 2005 at the Wayback Machine Press release on the Computer History Museum Computer History Museum s Major New Exhibition Opens Computer History Museum Archived from the original on January 3 2017 Retrieved March 5 2017 John Hollar Computer History Museum Dan l Lewin Appointed CEO Press release Computer History Museum February 27 2018 Heinz Nixdorf Museum Archived July 9 2011 at the Wayback Machine How Google Works David F Carr Baseline com July 6 2006 Computer History Museum Oral History Collection Wollan Malia January 13 2011 Computer History Museum Unveils Its Makeover The New York Times Archived from the original on December 4 2016 Bilton Nick January 14 2010 Bits Pics The Computer History Museum The New York Times Archived from the original on January 19 2011 Retrieved January 15 2011 Computer History Museums Major New Exhibition Opens January 12th 2011 Computer History Museum Archived from the original on January 17 2011 Retrieved January 15 2011 Computer History Museum Opens New Exhibition Make Software Change the World CHM Retrieved October 15 2023 Moack Mark January 28 2016 Difference Engine Leaves Computer History Museum Mountain View Voice Archived from the original on March 2 2016 Computer History Museum Names Software Curator Silicon Valley Business Journal American City Business Journals July 12 2006 Retrieved October 18 2021 Computer History Museum Leads Software Research and Preservation with New Center Launch Yahoo News March 1 2017 Archived from the original on October 18 2021 Retrieved October 18 2021 Scott Jason That Time I Put Bitsavers into Archive org ASCII Archived from the original on January 11 2013 MacPaint and QuickDraw Source Code Computer History Museum July 20 2010 Archived from the original on August 22 2012 Hesseldahl Erik July 20 2010 Apple Donates MacPaint Source Code To Computer History Museum Businessweek com Archived from the original on February 9 2012 Shustek Len October 10 2012 The APL Programming Language Source Code Computer History Museum Archived from the original on October 7 2013 Retrieved October 15 2013 Bishop Bryan February 14 2013 Adobe releases original Photoshop source code for nostalgic developers TheVerge com Archived from the original on January 17 2014 Retrieved October 15 2013 Adobe Photoshop Source Code Archived May 7 2014 at the Wayback Machine PostScript A Digital Printing Press CHM December 1 2022 Retrieved October 15 2023 Shustek Len March 24 2014 Microsoft Word for Windows Version 1 1a Source Code Archived from the original on March 28 2014 Retrieved March 29 2014 Levin Roy March 25 2014 Microsoft makes source code for MS DOS and Word for Windows available to public Official Microsoft Blog Archived from the original on March 28 2014 Retrieved March 29 2014 NB While the author and publishers claim the package would include MS DOS 1 1 and 2 0 it actually contains SCP MS DOS 1 25 and a mixture of files from Altos MS DOS 2 11 and TeleVideo PC DOS 2 11 McJones Paul October 21 2014 Xerox Alto Source Code The Roots of the Modern Personal Computer Software Gems The Computer History Museum Historical Source Code Series Computer History Museum Archived from the original on January 2 2015 Retrieved January 8 2015 With the permission of the Palo Alto Research Center the Computer History Museum is pleased to make available for non commercial use only snapshots of Alto source code executables documentation font files and other files from 1975 to 1987 The Lisa Apple s Most Influential Failure CHM January 19 2023 Retrieved October 15 2023 Walk Through Computer The Software Theater The Walk Through Computer 2000 PDF David Laws App Shines in New Exhibit at Computer History Museum BATW Archived from the original on January 6 2017 Retrieved January 6 2017 Hall of Fellows Computer History Museum Retrieved December 22 2022 Fellow Awards CHM Retrieved October 15 2023 Further reading editBell Gordon April 4 2011 Out of a Closet The Early Years of the Computer x Museum PDF Technical report Redmond Washington Microsoft Research MSR TR 2011 44 Archived from the original PDF on January 18 2012 Retrieved June 22 2023 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Computer History Museum Official website nbsp Computer History Museum s channel on YouTube The Computer Museum Archive Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Computer History Museum amp oldid 1212074292, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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