History and Origins
– The museum’s origins date back to 1968 when Gordon Bell began a quest for a historical collection.
– The first exhibit was held in 1975 in a converted coat closet in a DEC lobby.
– The museum moved to a larger DEC lobby in Marlborough, Massachusetts in 1978.
– TDCM incorporated as The Computer Museum (TCM) in 1982.
– TCM moved to Boston in 1984 and later changed its name to Computer History Museum (CHM) in 2000.
Collections and Exhibition Space
– The CHM claims to house the largest and most significant collection of computing artifacts in the world.
– The collection includes rare objects such as a Cray-1 supercomputer and an Apple I.
– There are nearly 90,000 objects, photographs, films, and 4,000ft of cataloged documentation.
– The CHM conducts video interviews for its oral history program, with over 1,000 interviews recorded.
– The museum’s exhibit ‘Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing’ covers the history of computing in 20 galleries.
Software
– The CHM has an extensive collection of software curated by Al Kossow.
– Kossow is responsible for preservation and accession of software in the museum.
– The museum began collecting source code in 2010, starting with Apple’s MacPaint 1.3.
– Other significant source code releases include APL programming language and Photoshop 1.0.1.
– Microsoft donated source code for SCP MS-DOS 1.25 and Word for Windows 1.1a.
Past Exhibits
– The Walk-Through Computer exhibit opened in 1990 to help visitors learn about computers.
– It was later updated and reopened as Walk-Through Computer 2000 in 1995.
– The museum had a Liquid Galaxy exhibit in 2016, allowing visitors to fly to preselected locations.
– An exhibit on the history of autonomous vehicles was also displayed.
– The museum has a history of hosting various interactive exhibits.
Fellow Awards Program
– The CHM Fellow Awards Program honors distinguished technology pioneers.
– The program has grown to 95 members as of 2023.
– The first fellow was Rear Admiral Grace Hopper in 1987.
– Fellow nominations are open to the public and accepted year-round.
– Lynn Conway, John Crawford, and Irwin M. Jacobs were awarded fellows in 2014. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_History_Museum
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.
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.jpg) The Computer History Museum's front entrance | |
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Former names | The Computer Museum |
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| Established | 1996 |
| Location | Mountain View, California, US |
| Coordinates | 37°24′52″N 122°04′37″W / 37.414371°N 122.076817°W |
| Type | History and Technology Museum |
| Collection size | Over 1 million objects |
| CEO | Dan'l Lewin |
| Website | computerhistory |
