Computer museum

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The National Computer & Communications Museum Apple computer on display at The National Computer & Communications Museum.JPG
The National Computer & Communications Museum

A computer museum is devoted to the study of historic computer hardware and software, where a "museum" is a "permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates, and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment, for the purposes of education, study, and enjoyment", as defined by the International Council of Museums. [1]

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Some computer museums exist within larger institutions, such as the Science Museum in London, United Kingdom; and the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany. Others are dedicated specifically to computing, such as:

Some specialize in the early history of computing, [2] others in the era that started with the first personal computers such as the Apple I and Altair 8800, Apple II systems, older Apple Macintoshes, Commodore Internationals, Amigas, IBM PCs and more rare computers such as the Osborne 1. Some concentrate more on research and conservation, others more on education and entertainment. There are also private collections, most of which can be visited by appointment. [3]

See also

Further reading

Related Research Articles

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membership group, reporting nearly 110,000 student and professional members as of 2022. Its headquarters are in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Computing</span> Activity involving calculations or computing machinery

Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, engineering, mathematical, technological, and social aspects. Major computing disciplines include computer engineering, computer science, cybersecurity, data science, information systems, information technology, and software engineering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">JANET</span> Academic computer network in the United Kingdom

Janet is a high-speed network for the UK research and education community provided by Jisc, a not-for-profit company set up to provide computing support for education. It serves 18 million users and is the busiest National Research and Education Network in Europe by volume of data carried. Previously, Janet was a private, UK-government funded organisation, which provided the JANET computer network and related collaborative services to UK research and education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum</span> Institution that holds items of significance

A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying and/or preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private collections that are used by researchers and specialists. Museums host a much wider range of objects than a library, and usually focus on a specific theme, such as the arts, science, natural history or local history. Public museums that host exhibitions and interactive demonstrations are often tourist attractions, and many attract large numbers of visitors from outside their host country, with the most visited museums in the world attracting millions of visitors annually.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Computer engineering</span> Engineering discipline specializing in the design of computer hardware

Computer engineering is a branch of computer science and electronic engineering that integrates several fields of computer science and electronic engineering required to develop computer hardware and software. Computer engineering is referred to as computer science and engineering or Electrical and Computer engineering at some universities

NeXT Computer is a workstation computer that was developed, marketed, and sold by NeXT Inc. It was introduced in October 1988 as the company's first and flagship product, at a price of US$6,500, aimed at the higher-education market. It was designed around the Motorola 68030 CPU and 68882 floating-point coprocessor, with a clock speed of 25 MHz. Its NeXTSTEP operating system is based on the Mach microkernel and BSD-derived Unix, with a proprietary GUI using a Display PostScript-based back end. According to the Science Museum Group, "The enclosure consists of a 1-foot die-cast magnesium cube-shaped black case, which led to the machine being informally referred to as 'The Cube'."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of computing</span>

The history of computing is longer than the history of computing hardware and modern computing technology and includes the history of methods intended for pen and paper or for chalk and slate, with or without the aid of tables.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Retrocomputing</span>

Retrocomputing is the current use of older computer hardware and software. Retrocomputing is usually classed as a hobby and recreation rather than a practical application of technology; enthusiasts often collect rare and valuable hardware and software for sentimental reasons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Computer History Museum</span> Museum in Mountain View, California

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ferranti Pegasus</span> Type of vacuum-tube computer

Pegasus was an early British vacuum-tube (valve) computer built by Ferranti, Ltd that pioneered design features to make life easier for both engineers and programmers. Originally it was named the Ferranti Package Computer as its hardware design followed that of the Elliott 401 with modular plug-in packages. Much of the development was the product of three men: W. S. (Bill) Elliott (hardware); Christopher Strachey (software) and Bernard Swann. It was Ferranti's most popular valve computer with 38 being sold. The first Pegasus was delivered in 1956 and the last was delivered in 1959. Ferranti received funding for the development from the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtual Library museums pages</span> Online museum directory

The Virtual Library museums pages (VLmp) formed an early leading directory of online museums around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtual museum</span> Museum in a digital format

A virtual museum is a digital entity that draws on the characteristics of a museum, in order to complement, enhance, or augment the museum experience through personalization, interactivity, and richness of content. Virtual museums can perform as the digital footprint of a physical museum, or can act independently, while maintaining the authoritative status as bestowed by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) in its definition of a museum. In tandem with the ICOM mission of a physical museum, the virtual museum is also committed to public access; to both the knowledge systems embedded in the collections and the systematic, and coherent organization of their display, as well as to their long-term preservation. As with a traditional museum, a virtual museum can be designed around specific objects, or can consist of online exhibitions created from primary or secondary resources. Moreover, a virtual museum can refer to the mobile or World Wide Web offerings of traditional museums ; or can be born digital content such as, 3D environments, net art, virtual reality and digital art. Often, discussed in conjunction with other cultural institutions, a museum by definition, is essentially separate from its sister institutions such as a library or an archive. Virtual museums are usually, but not exclusively delivered electronically when they are denoted as online museums, hypermuseum, digital museum, cybermuseums or web museums.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Computer Museum, Boston</span> Former computer museum in Boston, Massachusetts

The Computer Museum was a Boston, Massachusetts, museum that opened in 1979 and operated in three locations until 1999. It was once referred to as TCM and is sometimes called the Boston Computer Museum. When the museum closed and its space became part of Boston Children's Museum next door in 2000, much of its collection was sent to the Computer History Museum in California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vintage Computer Festival</span>

The Vintage Computer Festival (VCF) is an international event celebrating the history of computing. It is held annually in various locations around the United States and various countries internationally. It was founded by Sellam Ismail in 1997.

The IT History Society (ITHS) is an organization that supports the history and scholarship of information technology by encouraging, fostering, and facilitating archival and historical research. Formerly known as the Charles Babbage Foundation, it advises historians, promotes collaboration among academic organizations and museums, and assists IT corporations in preparing and archiving their histories for future studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Centre for Computing History</span>

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.

Informatics is the study of computational systems. According to the ACM Europe Council and Informatics Europe, informatics is synonymous with computer science and computing as a profession, in which the central notion is transformation of information. In some cases, the term "informatics" may also be used with different meanings, e.g. in the context of social computing, or in context of library science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum informatics</span>

Museum informatics is an interdisciplinary field of study that refers to the theory and application of informatics by museums. It represents a convergence of culture, digital technology, and information science. In the context of the digital age facilitating growing commonalities across museums, libraries and archives, its place in academe has grown substantially and also has connections with digital humanities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vintage computer</span>

A vintage computer is an older computer system that is largely regarded as obsolete.

References

  1. "ICOM Statutes". International Council of Museums. Archived from the original on April 13, 2008. Retrieved April 5, 2008.
  2. "Computers: A Birthday Party for Eniac". Time . February 24, 1986.
  3. Christopher Mele (May 9, 2016). "15-Year-Old's 200 Vintage Apple Computers Are Now a Mac Museum". The New York Times . Retrieved October 2, 2022.