The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA is not your average museum.
For one thing, some of the exhibits aren’t even 5 years old yet. And where else can you go to a museum and see parts of your own history on display?
That is, if you’re a computer geek, like me.
The Computer History Museum was established in 1996 and is a public benefit organization dedicated to the preservation and celebration of computer history. The museum moved into a landmark building in Mountain View in 2003.
Having once founded a computer museum myself (more on that another time), I know how difficult it is to collect and store this stuff. Not to mention display and even restore it to operating condition.
I was thoroughly impressed by what the good people at the Computer History Museum have managed to achieve.
My own personal, early history in professional computing revolves around DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) and CDC (Control Data Corporation). For me, the visit to the Computer History Museum was a trip down memory lane. Let me show you what I mean, even though I didn’t personally get to work on all the equipment mentioned here.
Let’s start with the beginning of the Internet. I didn’t get to use the Internet myself until about 1991, long after these machines were no longer used, but I had to include this picture anyway.
BBN Interface Message Processor.
Photo: Gunnar Helliesen
The BBN IMP (Bolt, Beranek and Newman Interface Message Processor) was the first implementation of a “router” on the ARPANET, the predecessor to the modern Internet. What this picture doesn’t convey so well is how large this thing is. It doesn’t fit in a rack, it is a rack.
Moving on to DEC, here’s what started it all:
Restored and functional DEC PDP-1.
Photo: Gunnar Helliesen
The DEC PDP-1 in the picture has been restored to functional status by the museum. They fire it up every other Saturday and let the public play “Spacewar!” on it. The game was originally developed on a PDP-1 at MIT. You can read an excellent online exhibition about the history and restoration of this magnificent machine here.
The PDP-1 was a bit before my time. So was the next machine, the venerable DECsystem-10 (PDP-10). At the heart of this machine beats the mighty KL10 CPU. I had my hands on a KL10 once in the form of a DECsystem-20, but it was lost due to a clerical error (it was thrown in a landfill). Sniff…
DECsystem-10, also called the PDP-10.
Photo: Gunnar Helliesen
The KL10 was a proper 36 bit system. More information on 36 bit computing at 36bit.org. Moving on to a more pedestrian 32 bits and my own personal history: The VAX. More specifically, the VAX 11/780. My first love.
DEC VAX 11/780 with UNIBUS cabinet.
Photo: Gunnar Helliesen
Isn’t it pretty? At my former employer, where I used to work with these machines, we mostly ran VAX/VMS on them. The VAX 11/780 was also a very popular machine for running Unix on. For some VAX humor, which is actually a pretty good description of how it was to work with these lovely machines in the middle of a Big Blue shop, read the story “VAXen, my children, just don’t…” by Jack Harvey. Those were the days…
On to CDC, or more precisely, its offshoot ETA Systems. The machine that I worked on, and which taught me what a Real Computer should look like (and sound like!), was a CDC Cyber 180. We ran both NOS and NOS/VE on our Cyber, at the same time (see Wikipedia article for details).
Unfortunately the Computer History Museum didn’t have a Cyber 180 on display. They did, however, have an ETA-10.
It’s naked! ETA-10 on display sans outer cabinet.
Photo: Gunnar Helliesen
I had a hard time finding pictures of an ETA-10 with its clothes on, but here’s one and here’s another one. My personal connection with the ETA-10 was that my employer had more-or-less decided to buy one, to replace our aging Cyber, when ETA closed its doors. More on that sad tale here.
The next machine I never actually owned or used, but I lusted for it for a long time.
Osborne 1 at the Computer History Museum.
Photo: Gunnar Helliesen
The Osborne 1 was a glorious failure. Not in engineering, but in marketing. There’s even a name for it, the “Osborne Effect“. Finally, we come to a machine that gave me a bit of a shock when I saw it in the museum. First of all: “Is it that old?” Second: “Was the screen really that small?”
Apple PowerBook Duo 230. How time flies.
Photo: Gunnar Helliesen
I guess it must have been. A machine just like this, an Apple PowerBook Duo 230, used to be my daily work machine for quite a while at another former employer. The strange looking thing below the actual laptop is the docking station. You would just slide the machine into the slot in front like a VHS tape. The docking station would grab the machine and pull it the final inch until it was locked safely in place. To eject the machine you just pushed a button to the right of the slot.
It was a great machine, it turned from a workstation into a laptop in a couple of seconds (hence the “Duo” monicker). Mac OS was even smart enough to close down drivers and applications which used the peripherals in the docking station when you pushed the eject button. I really liked that machine.
If you ever get a chance to visit the Computer History Museum, don’t hesitate. Go search out your own personal history.
