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#computerhistorymuseum — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #computerhistorymuseum, aggregated by home.social.

  1. Boards of Canada - Olson, on a PDP-1 from 1959. 🎶

    ”The PDP-1 was never intended to produce audio […] It does however have six "program flags," which are flip-flops wired to six light bulbs on the control panel. A CPU instruction provides the ability to turn these light bulbs on or off via software.”

    youtube.com/watch?v=wubkrBd3-gg
    computerhistory.org/blog/pdp-1
    #BoardsOfCanada #dec #pdp1 #RetroComputing #ComputerHistoryMuseum

  2. I got distracted yesterday, but to continue what I promised:
    Everyone who knows me, knows that I am slightly obsessed with the Zuse #z23. So I was happy to see (small) parts of it at the #ComputerHistoryMuseum.
    But the choice of cards is slightly confusing.
    This computer is built out of discrete transistor logic, on relatively low density cards. So what happened here is, they apparently selected 2 visually interesting cards and by doing so picked cards which are analog in nature and not part of the compute logic at all!

    One of the cards has 601 visible, which is the identifier of this card type, which can be looked up in the official documentation, which luckily is hosted online by multiple universities.
    This tells us, that this is actually part of the storage drum (think hard disk, but the data is on the side rather than on the top surface) and it's a "single impulse amplifier".
    I totally see how that happens, as a card with 4 transistors and 4 resistors isn't visually interesting to look at.
    I am also very aware, that I am probably one of 10, certainly less than 100 people alive, who would notice this.
    We talk about an obscure German computer from the late 1950s after all.

    museum.cs.rptu.de/Rechner/Zuse

    #Zuse #ZuseZ23 #CHM #retrocomputing

  3. I got distracted yesterday, but to continue what I promised:
    Everyone who knows me, knows that I am slightly obsessed with the Zuse . So I was happy to see (small) parts of it at the .
    But the choice of cards is slightly confusing.
    This computer is built out of discrete transistor logic, on relatively low density cards. So what happened here is, they apparently selected 2 visually interesting cards and by doing so picked cards which are analog in nature and not part of the compute logic at all!

    One of the cards has 601 visible, which is the identifier of this card type, which can be looked up in the official documentation, which luckily is hosted online by multiple universities.
    This tells us, that this is actually part of the storage drum (think hard disk, but the data is on the side rather than on the top surface) and it's a "single impulse amplifier".
    I totally see how that happens, as a card with 4 transistors and 4 resistors isn't visually interesting to look at.
    I am also very aware, that I am probably one of 10, certainly less than 100 people alive, who would notice this.
    We talk about an obscure German computer from the late 1950s after all.

    museum.cs.rptu.de/Rechner/Zuse

  4. I got distracted yesterday, but to continue what I promised:
    Everyone who knows me, knows that I am slightly obsessed with the Zuse #z23. So I was happy to see (small) parts of it at the #ComputerHistoryMuseum.
    But the choice of cards is slightly confusing.
    This computer is built out of discrete transistor logic, on relatively low density cards. So what happened here is, they apparently selected 2 visually interesting cards and by doing so picked cards which are analog in nature and not part of the compute logic at all!

    One of the cards has 601 visible, which is the identifier of this card type, which can be looked up in the official documentation, which luckily is hosted online by multiple universities.
    This tells us, that this is actually part of the storage drum (think hard disk, but the data is on the side rather than on the top surface) and it's a "single impulse amplifier".
    I totally see how that happens, as a card with 4 transistors and 4 resistors isn't visually interesting to look at.
    I am also very aware, that I am probably one of 10, certainly less than 100 people alive, who would notice this.
    We talk about an obscure German computer from the late 1950s after all.

    museum.cs.rptu.de/Rechner/Zuse

    #Zuse #ZuseZ23 #CHM #retrocomputing

  5. I got distracted yesterday, but to continue what I promised:
    Everyone who knows me, knows that I am slightly obsessed with the Zuse #z23. So I was happy to see (small) parts of it at the #ComputerHistoryMuseum.
    But the choice of cards is slightly confusing.
    This computer is built out of discrete transistor logic, on relatively low density cards. So what happened here is, they apparently selected 2 visually interesting cards and by doing so picked cards which are analog in nature and not part of the compute logic at all!

    One of the cards has 601 visible, which is the identifier of this card type, which can be looked up in the official documentation, which luckily is hosted online by multiple universities.
    This tells us, that this is actually part of the storage drum (think hard disk, but the data is on the side rather than on the top surface) and it's a "single impulse amplifier".
    I totally see how that happens, as a card with 4 transistors and 4 resistors isn't visually interesting to look at.
    I am also very aware, that I am probably one of 10, certainly less than 100 people alive, who would notice this.
    We talk about an obscure German computer from the late 1950s after all.

    museum.cs.rptu.de/Rechner/Zuse

    #Zuse #ZuseZ23 #CHM #retrocomputing

  6. Since I will try to have a relaxed day, expect some sorted thoughts from the last week and in particular yesterday's museum visits.
    I start with one of the most unusual exhibition pieces:
    A Xerox Parc Beanbag Chair.

    #CHM #ComputerHistoryMuseum

  7. @bitsplusatoms @kenshirriff Ken is *amazing*! Such a humble & nice & competent person! 🫶 I wish I could meet him (and #CuriousMarc ) some day!! But living in Germany doesn‘t make it easy … And back in 2013 when I was in California and visited the #ComputerHistoryMuseum I didn‘t know about them. 🙄🙈 #vcfwest

  8. @bitsplusatoms @kenshirriff Ken is *amazing*! Such a humble & nice & competent person! 🫶 I wish I could meet him (and #CuriousMarc ) some day!! But living in Germany doesn‘t make it easy … And back in 2013 when I was in California and visited the #ComputerHistoryMuseum I didn‘t know about them. 🙄🙈 #vcfwest

  9. @bitsplusatoms @kenshirriff Ken is *amazing*! Such a humble & nice & competent person! 🫶 I wish I could meet him (and #CuriousMarc ) some day!! But living in Germany doesn‘t make it easy … And back in 2013 when I was in California and visited the #ComputerHistoryMuseum I didn‘t know about them. 🙄🙈 #vcfwest

  10. @bitsplusatoms @kenshirriff Ken is *amazing*! Such a humble & nice & competent person! 🫶 I wish I could meet him (and #CuriousMarc ) some day!! But living in Germany doesn‘t make it easy … And back in 2013 when I was in California and visited the #ComputerHistoryMuseum I didn‘t know about them. 🙄🙈 #vcfwest

  11. @bitsplusatoms @kenshirriff Ken is *amazing*! Such a humble & nice & competent person! 🫶 I wish I could meet him (and #CuriousMarc ) some day!! But living in Germany doesn‘t make it easy … And back in 2013 when I was in California and visited the #ComputerHistoryMuseum I didn‘t know about them. 🙄🙈 #vcfwest

  12. "CHM LIVE IN PERSON AND VIRTUAL EVENT
    THE GEEK WAY: A Handbook for a New Culture

    What if the most important innovation in tech isn't what companies make but how they make them? New York Times bestselling author Andrew McAfee will share the elements of what he calls "the Geek Way," a new corporate culture that's fast-moving, egalitarian, evidence-driven, and more.
    ..."

    DEC 14, 2023
    7:00 PM

    computerhistory.org/events/the

    #SiliconValley #SiliconValleyEvents #ComputerHistoryMuseum #CHM

  13. One of my local buddies, #CuriousMarc , has a pretty cool channel on YouTube

    Though he has a nice lab at his home, he sometimes visits the #ComputerHistoryMuseum as he does in this wonderful piece:

    Lyle Bickley explains the PDP-1 (and we play the original Spacewar!)

    youtube.com/watch?v=1EWQYAfuMY

  14. @coralsncaves
    Agreed, and I note that *anyone* who uses VLSI semiconductor chips (~all reading this) or especially smartphones (i.e., with ARM CPUs) depends on work of trans women, Lynn Conway and Sophie Wilson, both Fellows of #ComputerHistoryMuseum (among many other honors):
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Con
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_W
    I still have my copy of the classic Mead-Conway book (1980) and used to talk to Sophie at #HotChips conferences.