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New Computer Hall of Fame — Parallax Forums

New Computer Hall of Fame

ercoerco Posts: 20,260
edited 2011-01-17 21:41 in General Discussion
In northern California's Silicon Valley, Mountain View. Anyone planning a pilgrimmage to Parallax might want to include a visit here as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/us/14museum.html?_r=1&hp
http://www.computerhistory.org/about/

Comments

  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2011-01-14 00:17
    The Cambridge University EDSAC is being reconstructed at Bletchley Park here in the UK:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12181153

    I worked on the LEO III computer one summer when I was a student apprentice at English Electric LEO Marconi Computers. The original LEO computer was based on the EDSAC machine.

    BP is our equivalent of the Computer History Museum:

    http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/content/museum.rhtm
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,260
    edited 2011-01-14 09:02
    Heck, I'd go to Bletchley Park just for the name. Again I say, town & city names in the UK are so much more interesting than the US: Chipping Sodbury, Stow-on-the-Wold, Upton-upon-Severn, Tewkesbury, and the best, St. Leonards-on-Sea. What's not to love?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_towns_in_England

    And I wish my name was Nigel!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2011-01-14 09:34
    When I lived in the area, the amateur radio club I belonged to held their meetings at Blechley Park, in the main building.

    How about Penistone, in Yorkshire?

    And a village called Ugley (Essex) - the ladies in the local WI wanted the village renamed because they didn't like being called the Ugley Women's Institute:

    http://www.tomrobinson.com/faves/ugley.htm
  • lardomlardom Posts: 1,659
    edited 2011-01-14 09:47
    Leon, so I guess the name was never changed? The "Ugley Womens Institute" made me laugh out loud.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2011-01-14 10:00
    Apparently not!

    Returning to historic computers, here is a simulator for EDSAC:

    http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~edsac/
  • skylightskylight Posts: 1,915
    edited 2011-01-14 12:32
    You havn't seen the women in Essex believe me!....................only joking :)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2011-01-14 12:54
    Essex girls do have something of a reputation.
  • $WMc%$WMc% Posts: 1,884
    edited 2011-01-14 17:57
    Be nice;They all need loving.
    '
    Are these museums making the old school computers functional?
    I would really like for my son to see one of these old computers running.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2011-01-14 21:20
    The intention here in the UK is for the machines to be fully functional.

    The EDSAC is being built from scratch, as virtually none of the original machine remains.

    When Turing's Colossus was being rebuilt at BP a friend of mine contributed some valves to the project.

    There is a working version of Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2 in the Science Museum in London:

    http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/I033/10303307.aspx

    Babbage himself was never able to build it. There are plans to build his Analytical Engine, which resembled a modern computer:

    http://plan28.org/
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2011-01-15 11:21
    Good to see these museums prospering.

    Anyone ever been to Wyre Piddle http://wyrepiddle.com/default.aspx ?
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2011-01-16 00:43
    Ampex used to have a rather extensive audio recording museum in Menlo Park as well. It may still be there. Then there is the Winchester House near San Jose that was built by the mad widow of the Winchester rifle fortune. The first TV transmission in the USA was from the Silicon Valley area to San Francisco.

    The whole area is seeped in a lot of technological history. For a long time California was the most distant part of the US for Russia spies, so that and the good weather helped it prosper - aircraft, satellite, NASA, etc.

    Now a days, all that has moved to the Mid-West or other odd places where people can buy a nice home and live in comfortable surrounds.
  • JimInCAJimInCA Posts: 80
    edited 2011-01-17 11:17
    While in Mountain View, don't forget to make a pilgramage to Weired Stuff in Sunnyville and HSC Surplus in Santa Clara.

    www.weirdstuff.com
    www.halted.com

    Jim...
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2011-01-17 21:41
    I don't know if you'd want to fire up the historical ENIAC for preservation sake. (a tube would likely burn out and replacement could be challenging)
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