Collaborate Disseminate
[Ken Shirriff] recently shared some pictures and a writeup from his visit to the Large Scale Systems Museum, a remarkable private collection of mainframes and other computers from the 1970s to the 1990s. Housed in a town outside Pittsburgh, it contains a huge variety of specimens including IBM mainframes and …read more
Continue reading Big Beautiful Vintage Computers, and Where To Find Them
When I got the call asking if I’d be willing to fly down to Kennedy Space Center and cover an event, I agreed immediately. Then about a week later, I remembered to call back and ask what I was supposed to be doing. Not that it mattered, I’d gladly write …read more
Construction has begun on a large new extension for New York City’s American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). The building, designed by Studio Gang, will boast a degree of sustainable technology and provide additional exhibition spaces, a th… Continue reading Work begins on sculpted American Museum of Natural History extension
Britain’s Imperial War Museum (IWM) recently gained a new archive to help house its vast collection of records, courtesy of Architype. The IWM Paper Store is one seriously energy efficient building and is also the most airtight Passivhaus pro… Continue reading Imperial War Museum archive is most airtight Passivhaus building to date
Much to the chagrin of local historians, the city of Scranton, Pennsylvania is today best known as the setting for the American version of The Office. But while the exploits of Dunder Mifflin’s best and brightest might make for a good Netflix binge, there’s a lot more to the historic city than the fictional paper company. From its beginnings as a major supplier of anthracite coal to the introduction of America’s first electrically operated trolley system on its streets, Scranton earned its nickname “The Electric City” by being a major technological hub from the Industrial Revolution through to the …read more
When multiple tipsters write in to tell us about a story, we can tell it’s an important one. This morning we’ve received word that the holding warehouse of the Australian Computer Museum Society in the Sydney suburb of Villawood is to be imminently demolished, and they urgently need to save the artifacts contained within it. They need Aussies with spare storage capacity of decent size to help them keep and store the collection, and they only have a few days during which to do so.
The ever-effusive Dave from EEVblog has posted a video in which he takes a tour, …read more
Continue reading Help Save Some Of Australia’s Computer History From The Bulldozers
The pitch to my wife was simple: “Feel like spending the weekend in Seattle?” That’s how I ended up at the inaugural Vintage Computer Festival Pacific Northwest last weekend, and I’m glad we made the five-hour drive into The Big City to check it out. Hackaday is a VCF sponsor, after all, so it seemed like a great excuse to make the trip. That it ended up being two consecutive days of great Seattle weather was only icing on the cake of being able to spend time with fellow retro computer aficionados and their dearest bits of old hardware, in …read more
Continue reading Great Beginnings for Vintage Computing in Seattle; VCF PNW
Museum exhibits are difficult to make, and they’re always breaking down; especially the interactive ones. This is a combination of budget, building a one-off, and the incredibly harsh abuse they take from children.
My first exhibit is an interactive laser show that turns waveforms from music into laser patterns, and different types of music have very different patterns. I knew from talking to the museum staff that industrial buttons were a necessity, but it turns out that industrial buttons are made under the assumption that tiny creatures won’t be constantly mashing, twisting, and (ew ew ew) licking the buttons. After …read more
London’s 64 Bits exhibition goes back to the future of the web’s early days. Continue reading I Surfed the Wholesome Web of the 1990s at This Historically Accurate Internet Cafe
London’s 64 Bits exhibition goes back to the future of the web’s early days. Continue reading I Surfed the Wholesome Web of the 1990s at This Historically Accurate Internet Cafe
