 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2010) |
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| Established | 2007 |
|---|---|
| Location | Cambridge, Cambridgeshire |
| Type | Computers |
| Curator | Lisa McGerty |
| Public transit access | Newmarket Road |
| Nearest car park | On site |
| Website | computinghistory |
The Centre for Computing History is a museum in Cambridge, England, established to create a permanent public exhibition telling the story of the Information Age. [1]
The museum acts as a repository for vintage computers and related artefacts. The museum is open Wednesdays through to Sundays from 10am to 5pm in term time and 7 days a week during school holidays. [2] On display are key items from the early era of computers (and even before) from ageing comptometers through the Altair 8800 to the ZX Spectrum and Apple II series. The museum also holds vintage games consoles, peripherals, software and an extensive collection of computer manuals, magazines and other literature. It is home to the Megaprocessor, an enormous version of a computer chip designed by James Newman. [3]
The centre is a registered educational charity. [4] It is funded by a combination of sponsors from local businesses and private individuals. Venture capitalist and entrepreneur Hermann Hauser was involved with funding discussions. [5] He became patron of the museum in December 2011, 30 years after the launch of the BBC Micro. [6] The museum is run by a board of trustees chaired by Gareth Marlow. [7]
The Centre moved to a 10,500 sq ft (980 m2) site in Rene Court, off Coldham's Lane in the east side of Cambridge in summer 2013. [8] [9] [10] The museum was originally located in Haverhill, Suffolk. Plans to relocate the museum to Cambridge, [11] led to a report in October 2011 that negotiations were underway for a site. [5] The museum was informed in June 2012 that planning permission for the new Cambridge site had been granted, subject to complying with current building regulations. [12]
In March 2019, the museum was granted Accredited Museum status by Arts Council England (ACE). [13] The Accreditation Scheme sets out nationally agreed standards, which inspire the confidence of the public and funding and governing bodies. It enables museums to assess their current performance, as well as supporting them to plan and develop their services.
The founder, Jason Fitzpatrick, was replaced as CEO and Curator by former Project Manager Lisa McGerty in December 2022. [14]
The Centre for Computing History runs regular educational activities for schools and the general public. These range from programming workshops using 1980s BBC Micros to gaming tours to coding using software like Scratch for the Raspberry Pi.[ citation needed ]
The centre also loans artefacts for film and TV productions and has helped with props and sets for The IT Crowd , Brits Who Made the Modern World [15] on Channel Five with Peter Snow and in April 2009 produced the Gadget Hall of Fame [16] stand at The Gadget Show Live exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham. In December 2018, the centre was involved in a groundbreaking interactive Netflix episode of Black Mirror called Bandersnatch. [17]
The centre collects and preserves historical computing related artefacts and has undertaken a project to preserve the data from the BBC Domesday Project and make it available online. They already have data from both the National Disk and Community Disk online and are currently investigating copyright issues before releasing the URL to the general public. [18] The centre's oldest working machine is their Elliott 903, [19] which is regularly demonstrated; other important artefacts in the centre's collection include a prototype ZX Spectrum, [20] Professor Steve Furber's Computer Group prototype and a NeXT computer signed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
In June 2017, some of the centre's volunteers received recognition for their contributions to the museum at the annual SHARE Museums East Volunteer Awards. [21]
In October 2018, the centre received lottery funding for a project on LEO computers, in partnership with the LEO Computers Society. [22] [23] The project, Swiss Rolls, Tea and the Electronic Office: A History of LEO, the First Business Computer, aims to bring together, preserve, archive and digitise a range of LEO Computers artefacts, documents and personal memories to share the largely unknown story of LEO with a new audience. The project includes plans to develop a virtual reality replica of the LEO I. [24]
The centre was awarded an Object of The Year award from 'Museums in Cambridgeshire' in November 2019 for their Sinclair ZX Spectrum prototype, donated earlier that year from a company that had worked on it during its development. [25]
With their extensive collection of over 13,000 video games, [26] the centre also has a leading video game preservation initiative, [27] and information for every object in the museum collection is accessible via the online catalogue. As part of preservation, they digitally archive source code for games such as the Magic Knight series by David Jones (programmer), [28] and preserve and host scans of original sketches and other development materials from game companies such as Guerrilla Games. Their work emphasises the importance of preserving all aspects of the experience of a game, from marketing materials to the copy protection experience, packaging, and hardware. [29] The centre's collection also hosts uncommon hardware and operating systems with this in mind. They are also working with current video game developers and publishers, acting as a repository for their ongoing work so that it is actively preserved. [30]
The LEO was a series of early computer systems created by J. Lyons and Co. The first in the series, the LEO I, was the first computer used for commercial business applications.
Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK, including the Acorn Electron and the Acorn Archimedes. Acorn's BBC Micro computer dominated the UK educational computer market during the 1980s.
Sir Clive Marles Sinclair was an English entrepreneur and inventor, best known for being a pioneer in the computing industry and also as the founder of several companies that developed consumer electronics in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Stephen Byram Furber is a British computer scientist, mathematician and hardware engineer, currently the ICL Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manchester, UK. After completing his education at the University of Cambridge, he spent the 1980s at Acorn Computers, where he was a principal designer of the BBC Micro and the ARM 32-bit RISC microprocessor. As of 2018, over 100 billion copies of the ARM processor have been manufactured, powering much of the world's mobile computing and embedded systems.
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Hermann Maria Hauser, KBE, FRS, FREng, FInstP, CPhys is an Austrian entrepreneur, venture capitalist and inventor who is primarily associated with the Cambridge technology community in England.
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Haverhill is a market town and civil parish in the county of Suffolk, England, next to the borders of Essex and Cambridgeshire. It lies about 14 miles (23 km) south east of Cambridge, south west of Bury St Edmunds, and north west of Braintree and Colchester.
Computer literacy is defined as the knowledge and ability to use computers and related technology efficiently, with skill levels ranging from elementary use to computer programming and advanced problem solving. Computer literacy can also refer to the comfort level someone has with using computer programs and applications. Another valuable component is understanding how computers work and operate. An individual's level of computer literacy is measured on the scale of how skilled they are when it comes to using computers and other related tools to achieve a goal. Computer literacy may be distinguished from computer programming, which primarily focuses on the design and coding of computer programs rather than the familiarity and skill in their use. Various countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States, have created initiatives to improve national computer literacy rates.
The Horace video game series was created in the 1980s by William Tang for Beam Software. The series comprised Hungry Horace, Horace Goes Skiing and Horace and the Spiders.
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The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphasis on education, it was notable for its ruggedness, expandability, and the quality of its operating system. An accompanying 1982 television series, The Computer Programme, featuring Chris Serle learning to use the machine, was broadcast on BBC2.
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Micro Men is a 2009 one-off BBC drama television programme set in the late 1970s and the early-mid 1980s, about the rise of the British home computer market. It focuses on the rivalry between Sir Clive Sinclair, who developed the ZX Spectrum, and Chris Curry, the man behind the BBC Micro.
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Peter Leigh, more commonly known by the alias Nostalgia Nerd, is a British presenter, YouTuber, author and Twitch streamer, who documents and specialises in ageing technology and software. First appearing on YouTube in 2014, he routinely and enthusiastically explores forgotten computers and the technology surrounding them. He often specialises in historical documentaries on vintage computing, but also delves into technical explanations. Leigh also ventures into modern, mystery, explanation and more frivolous tech videos, with a humorous style and British wit.
[...] Fitzpatrick says negotiations are now underway on a 10,000 sq ft site on Coldham's Road [...]
Dr Hermann Hauser has been named as patron of the new Centre for Computing History in Cambridge UK. [...] agreed to take on the important role 30 years after the company he co-founded – Acorn Computers – unveiled the BBC Micro [...]
