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  • Computer History Museum

    From Kurt Weiske@1:218/700 to All on Tue Mar 14 11:17:15 2017

    I took my son to the Computer History Museum this weekend, took the docent-led tour. We had a lot of fun, saw some ENIAC components, a UNIVAC console and memory, a bunch of minicomputers (a Microdata Reality mini, VAX 11/780, and PRIME 300, all systems I used in my career), a Xerox Alto, Apple 1 (signed by Woz), Apple II, Lisa, Mac, tons of DOS PCs, Grid laptops, Amigas, Compaq portables, and the highlight for my son, an IBM 1401 midrange computer set up in a computer room, with raised tile flooring, line printers, paper TTYs, tall magtape readers, and period desks and printouts. My son was amazed that computers used to be manned 24/7 and that most people's interaction with the computer was through greenbar 11x17 paper.

    If you're in Mountain View, CA, check it out.
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  • From Dave Drum@1:18/200 to Kurt Weiske on Wed Mar 15 07:16:25 2017
    Kurt Weiske wrote to All <=-

    I took my son to the Computer History Museum this weekend, took the docent-led tour. We had a lot of fun, saw some ENIAC components, a
    UNIVAC console and memory, a bunch of minicomputers (a Microdata
    Reality mini, VAX 11/780, and PRIME 300, all systems I used in my
    career), a Xerox Alto, Apple 1 (signed by Woz), Apple II, Lisa, Mac,
    tons of DOS PCs, Grid laptops, Amigas, Compaq portables, and the
    highlight for my son, an IBM 1401 midrange computer set up in a
    computer room, with raised tile flooring, line printers, paper TTYs,
    tall magtape readers, and period desks and printouts. My son was amazed that computers used to be manned 24/7 and that most people's
    interaction with the computer was through greenbar 11x17 paper.

    If you're in Mountain View, CA, check it out.

    Never been to tht one. But I've seen some major parts of the collection at the Boston Computer Museum - which closed in 1999 and sent its stuff to the CHM in Mountain View, CA.

    If you really want to freak your son out remind him than in the early days women operators of mainframes were not allowed to wear nylons in the computer room - because the stastic electricity from their thighs rubbing together wouls cause errors in the computations. My GF at the time came home fuming one day because her boss at the school board had ordered her to ditch the pantyhose. Bv)=

    ... Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
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