SMUG Welcomes Computer History Museum Executive Director, John Toole
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STANFORD/PALO ALTO MACINTOSH USERS GROUP NEWSLETTER Vol 12 No.3 • March 2003 SMUG Welcomes Computer History Museum Executive Director, John Toole On February 3, 2003, the Stanford/Palo Homebrew Computer Club. There was a certain aura in Alto Macintosh User Group was delight- the air...an electrical stimulus that I am positive we all ed to host a presentation and talk given experienced. With John Toole in the house, it was as if by the Computer History Museum’s we all were participating in computer history, in the mak- Executive Director, Mr. John Toole. I ing. How lucky we Bay Area folks are to have such a met John back in December, when, after magical and magnetic mecca in our own backyard! joining the CHM as a member and It will be a great honor to participate in the CHM’s Apple donor, Ms. Catriona Sweeney, a Celebration, which will be held on June 7th from 5 to 7 Development Associate with the PM, PST. John Toole Museum, invited me to represent SMUG More information regarding this commemoration can be at the VIP reception for Apple inventor and Wheels of Zeus found on the Computer History Museum’s World Wide engineer, Steve Wozniak. Web presence: The evening began with a rare, but informative talk by Mac http://www.computerhistory.org/applecelebration/ Guru and former SMUG President, Fred Balin, who brought us up-to-date on some of the incredible products and services “Apple - The Seeds of Innovation” will be a once-in-a- that Apple now has available for both the average consumer lifetime event that no Mac enthusiast should miss! and hardcore enthusiast. SMUG President, Frank Smith chaired the Q&A session that followed. David Aston of SLAC Stewart Hersey, Vice President, Stanford Palo/Alto opened our eyes to a myriad of new software developed for Macintosh User Group OS X during the Shareware section, and Brooks Collins pre- miered the DVD of the Homebrew Computer Club’s 26th Birthday Commemoration, which was organized by SMUG and documented at this link: http://www.bambi.net/bob/homebrew_reunion_article.txt John approached the podium and took us all by storm with IN THIS ISSUE his captivating words and inspirational multimedia presen- Computer History Museum ............................1 tation. SMUG members and visitors alike were impressed by the sheer size of the Computer History Museum’s per- The Past as Prolog..........................................2 manent collection and archives. He showed us clips from Word from the Moof.............................................3 the various computing illuminatii that have lectured at the CHM; among them, the Wizard of Woz, himself. CD-Rom Winter 2003.......................................4 The CHM is so lucky to have acquired their new building Shareware March Demo ................................5 at 1401 Shoreline Blvd. in Mountain View, which Homebrew Movies...........................................5 in itself, is an excellent architectural example of Silicon Valley’s computing golden age a la SGI. John was our Adobe InDesign vs: Quark .............................6 virtual escort of the new museum building, and proudly Calendar of SMUG Events..............................7 displayed artists renditions of future designs for the CHM. exhibits. In all, it was a great honor for SMUG to host the SMUG new home page Computer History Museum at SLAC’s Panofsky http://www.pa-smug.org Auditorium, which was the orginal venue for the 650 - 286 -7539 Page 1 Smug Contacts The Past As Prolog February Meeting Report by John Schipper SMUG Office P.O. Box 20132 Stanford CA, 94309 At the February 5 SMUG General Meeting, John Toole, 650 286-7539 Executive Director of the Computer History Museum WEB Site (CHM), discussed the development of computer tech- ht t p : / w w w . p a - s m u g . o r g nology in the context of development of human tech- nologies. Stone tools appeared approximately 50,000 Club Mailing List sm u g u s e r g r o u p @ y a h o o g r o u p s . c o m years ago; agriculture developed 9,000-12,000 years ago; steam engines were developed by Watt and other BOARD OF DIRECTORS circa 1712; computers were applied to military and Frank Smith,, President other practical problems circa 1945; and the Home Brew Computer Club had its (510) 477-0969 first meeting (in Gordon French’s garage) in 1975. Special purpose computers aq u a m a n 4 7 @ m a c . c o m and computer procedures were developed by Atanasoff, by von Neumann, Burks Tom Mathieu, Treasurer and Goldstine, and by Eckert and Mauchly, among others. Some of this history (650) 494-7760 is presented by Stan Augarten in a 1984 book, Bit By Bit. tmathieu@p a - s m u g . o r g Rob Ruether, Director-at-Large At Mr. Toole’s suggestion, I visited CHM at its new location at 1401 Shoreline (650) 856-7418 Boulevard (at the intersection of Shoreline and Route 101, in a former Silicon RobRuether@p a - s m u g . o r g Graphics building), talked with two CHM representatives, and obtained a fat Julia Huot, Director-at-Large packet of material that provides more information than I could have hoped for (408) 257-4757 about CHM. The following narrative will mix information from this packet with [email protected] information provided by Mr. Toole, without attribution. NON-BOARD OFFICER The CHM began life in Boston in 1979 as the Digital Computer Museum Stewart Hersey, Vice President (DCM), in a portion of a building owned by Digital Equipment Corporation, (650) 703-8865 hersey@p a - s m u g . o r g as a place to house and display an extensive collection of modules and com- puting devices accumulated by Gordon Bell (head of DEC engineering) and COMMITTEES Gwen Bell. The DCM later added archives and a library and lectures on Membership computer pioneers. In 1983 the DCM, which had dropped the word Ilana Braun, Chair “Digital” from its name, relocated to Museum Wharf, with 60,000 square (650) 493-6197 feet of space, in downtown Boston. In November 1984, the Computer ilanab@p a - s m u g . o r g Museum (CM) opened its exhibits to the public, including the Whirlwind Scott Spencer Assistant vacuum tube computer, the SAGE computer room, Gordon Bell’s 20-year [email protected] timeline of major computer inventions, software application and benchmark applications, and the story of development of Cray computers. In 1988, the NEWSLETTER CM began collaborating with the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Lorrie Bleiler, Director-at-Large with a common catalog and common database for both collections. In the Editor/Designer early 1990s a Computer Milestones exhibit opened, featuring machines such (650) 948-1400 phone and fax [email protected] as the Whirlwind, IBM 360/30, Univac I, PDP-8, Apple 1, Computer Space, Pong, and CRAY-1, among others. John Schipper, Staff Writer (650) 493-8048 In 1996, a Computer Museum History Center (CMHC) was established in, Mike Thornburg, Distribution and part of the collection was moved to, the Silicon Valley in California. (650) 856-3247 The Boston site continued to emphasize exhibits, and the Silicon Valley site [email protected] maintained to archival collections. In early 2000, the CM relinquished its Louis Bookbinder, News and Tips exhibition space on Museum Wharf, and the remaining part of the collection booky@p a - s m u g . o r g was moved to Moffett Field, near Mountain View, California. Venture capi- WEB SITE talist and scientist Len Shustek helped CHM begin on the West Coast and is James W. Higgins, Chairperson of the CHM Board Of Trustees. In 1999, the CMHC became an Webmaster/Secretary IRC 501(c)(3) charitable organization. The CHM has cooperated with the [email protected] Intel Museum, including loans of collection items. The CMHC’s collection of artifacts has doubled in size since 1996. In 2001, the CMHC became the Computer History Museum (CHM), with a “Visible Storage Exhibit Area,” a restoration program and a lecture series at Moffett Field. Presently, the CHM Page 2 collection includes more than 4,000 artifacts, 10,000 time line for computer development. The CHM is open images, 4,000 linear feet of catalogued documentation, Wednesdays and Fridays in the evenings and on the first and gigabytes of software, shared between the new and third Saturdays of each month. Shoreline facility and the remaining Moffett Field facility CHM can be reached online at: (approximately 119,000 and 22,000 square feet, respec- www.computerhistory.com. and tively). Ultimately, the entire collection will move to the by telephone at 650-810-1010. two-story Shoreline facility. The CHM collection now includes artifacts, films, video tapes, photos, documentation and software. The CHM Words from the Moof. presently has about 20 full time equivalent staff, 75 active volunteers and 150 total volunteers. An associat- As I moofed around at the 2003 ed cybermuseum is being “discussed.” Three lead Macworld show looking at the lat- sponsors of the CHM activities are Hewlett Packard, est and greatest, fastest and slick- Adobe Systems and 1185 Design. A special celebration est hardware and and software that is planned for June 2003. Apple has put on display for all of us to drool over, I couldn’t help The November 2002 issue of I.E.E.E. Spectrum maga- but be amused. zine included a six-page article (“The Ghosts of Computers Past”) on some of the delightful exhibits Julia Huot Why was I amused? available at CHM. These include the Hollerith tabulat- The Macophiles that visited our SMUG ing Machine (used to tabulate the U.S.