NOVEMBER 2002 CORE 3.3 A PUBLICATION OF THE COMPUTER HISTORY MUSEUM WWW.COMPUTERHISTORY.ORG PAGE 1 November 2002 WE HAVE PURCHASED COREA publication of the Computer History3.3 Museum IN THIS MISSION ISSUE TO PRESERVE AND PRESENT FOR POSTERITY THE A GREAT BUILDING! ARTIFACTS AND STORIES OF THE INFORMATION AGE INSIDE FRONT COVER VISION WE HAVE PURCHASED A GREAT BUILDING! The year 2002 will forever be very TO EXPLORE THE COMPUTING REVOLUTION AND ITS John C Toole special for the Computer History IMPACT ON THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE Museum. I am proud to announce that 2 EXHIBITING COMPUTING HISTORY we have acquired a spectacular Kirsten Tashev 119,000 square-foot building on EXECUTIVE STAFF 7.5 acres of land at 1401 N. Shoreline 6 Blvd. in Mountain View, California. With John C Toole David A Miller BRINGING COMPUTING HISTORY this purchase, we are taking a major EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & CEO VICE PRESIDENT OF DEVELOPMENT TO THE PUBLIC Michael Falarski Michael R Williams 2 Ed Rodley step toward realizing our dreams of VICE PRESIDENT OF OPERATIONS & HEAD CURATOR having a permanent home, owning our FACILITIES 11 own land, directing our future, focusing exit north of our current offices! We are this encouragement, we are increasingly Karen Mathews HISTORY MATTERS EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT on programs, and building new neighbors in Mountain View now, with offering special events and programs Mike Williams relationships with the communities we federal and local governments targeted to the needs of our “remote” serve. connected to a community of “can-do” community. It was a pleasure, for BOARD OF TRUSTEES 14 people. example, to be at the Museum of UNIVAC: THE FIRST AMERICAN Leonard J Shustek, Chairman Charles H (Chuck) House 6 COMMERCIAL COMPUTER The transformation won’t happen Science in Boston this fall to celebrate VENCRAFT LLC INTEL CONVERGED Chris Garcia COMMUNICATIONS GROUP overnight because we will open this new We are watchful in this economic the opening of the “Computing Sally M Abel DIALOGIC DIVISION FENWICK & WEST LLP space in several phases. We plan to climate and mindful of our duty to Revolution” exhibit, which features Dave House 18 David L Anderson move our staff into the building by the faithfully fulfill our responsibilities to many of our artifacts. I hope those on ALLEGRO NETWORKS RECENT ADDITIONS TO THE SENDMAIL COLLECTION end of the year and unveil the first our supporters. For the important cause the East Coast will visit that exhibit Christine Hughes C Gordon Bell ACHIEVEMENT PLUS phase of our public presence on we represent, I’m proud to ask you to and experience something of the MICROSOFT CORPORATION John Mashey 19 Peggy Burke Shoreline Blvd. in May 2003 after a few please consider an increased or new Computer History Museum 3,000 miles SENSEI PARTNERS LLC REPORT ON MUSEUM ACTIVITIES 1185 DESIGN 14 Karen Mathews renovations are completed. Read more contribution to our annual fund, a away from California. Ike R Nassi Lori Crawford ALLEGIS CAPITAL about our exhibit planning process in donation to our capital campaign, and INFINITY CAPITAL LLC Suhas Patil Kirsten Tashev’s article on page two. to help spread the news about the Lastly, I want to thank everyone involved Andrea Cunningham 24 TUFAN ANNUAL DONORS Museum to others. Look carefully at for their personal sacrifices, the long CITIGATE CUNNINGHAM Bernard L Peuto Donna Dubinsky It is awesome to see how we have this issue of CORE to see what we hours, and the spectacular execution CONCORD CONSULTING HANDSPRING 25 grown, wrestled with major decisions, have accomplished, and remember this summer and fall in acquiring the John William Poduska Sr David Emerson UPCOMING EVENTS ADVANCED VISUAL SYSTEMS and emerged even stronger in that you are always a welcome part of new building. The passion, persistence, CLARENT CORPORATION CONTACT INFORMATION F Grant Saviers 19 commitment, passion, and action—all in our institution. and generosity of our Trustees, staff, Eric Hahn PRIVATE INVESTOR the past year or so. In that time, our volunteers, and supporters has enabled INVENTURES GROUP John Shoch ON THE BACK COVER Gardner C Hendrie strategies have definitely changed, but With the excitement of the new building, our bold move—I could tell story after ALLOY VENTURES MYSTERY ITEMS FROM THE COLLECTION SIGMA PARTNERS the goal remains the same: to build a don’t overlook the simultaneous story of how each person really made Stephen L Squires Peter Hirshberg HEWLETT-PACKARD COMPANY Copyright ©2002, Computer History Museum. major institution that preserves and extensive growth in our public programs, a difference. GLOSS.COM All rights reserved. The Museum is an independent presents the artifacts and stories of the which include world-class lectures that Pierluigi Zappacosta 501(c)(3) organization, FID #77-0507525. PO Box 367, information age. I’m convinced more contribute to our historical archive, oral It’s a wonderful but awesome Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA. Printed in the USA. than ever that we are setting the course histories, participation in special events responsibility to preserve a heritage. BOARD OF ADVISORS BACK Computer History Museum for an innovative future—our mission is to collect computing histories (such as I’m proud to report that we have been Gene Amdahl Burge Jamieson 1401 N Shoreline Blvd unique and focused, and we have one an IBM Stretch reunion, DECWORLD taking some giant steps forward. Help William Aspray SIGMA PARTNERS Mountain View, CA 94043-1311, USA of the best collections of computing 2001, and upcoming Apple us continue to grow—the best is yet INDIANA UNIVERSITY Randy Katz +1 650 810 1010 artifacts in the world. retrospective and database panel to come! Robert Broderson UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA +1 650 810 1055 (fax) UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY (effective December 15, 2002) events), and numerous exhibitions that BERKELEY Steve Kirsch We owe much to the people at NASA for bring artifacts and history alive. Paul Ceruzzi PROPEL SOFTWARE CORPORATION WWW.COMPUTERHISTORY.ORG NATIONAL AIR & SPACE MUSEUM David Patterson their support and help in our own recent SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Submission guidelines: www.computerhistory.org/core history. We will continue to use It is motivating to meet people Federico Faggin BERKELEY or write [email protected]. buildings 126 and 45 at Moffett Field everywhere who share our dreams, SYNAPTICS James N Porter for critical storage for as long as including early supporters of the JOHN C TOOLE Samuel Fuller DISK/TREND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & CEO ANALOG DEVICES possible. We intend to foster great Computer History Museum. Although Eric Schmidt James Gray GOOGLE Cover: Humans have relied on calculation for over 2,000 years. relationships with partners in the NASA some of you are geographically distant MICROSOFT CORPORATION Foreground: an early method known since Roman times of storing numbers Research Park over time; after all, our from California, people everywhere on the fingers—first described by The Venerable Bede—and here shown in building on Shoreline is just one freeway want to be part of the Museum. With a woodcut from Jacob Leopold’s 1727 Theatrum Arithmetico-Geometricum. PUBLICATION STAFF Background: typical Integrated Circuit Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) circuit board used in modern-day digital computers. Karyn Wolfe Photo: Dag Spicer. EDITOR COMPUTER HISTORY MUSEUM CORE 3.3 PAGE 2 PAGE 3 Schematic Design is not just about content, but also about design; we begin to think about how the exhibits EXHIBITING will look. The Museum is working with exhibit designers Van Sickle & Rolleri, Ltd. (VSR) to develop conceptual exhibit COMPUTING HISTORY floorplans and elevations. From our curatorial outlines, VSR begins creating “elevations,” or wall views, of each BY KIRSTEN TASHEV exhibit area. (See elevations on next page.) They also create conceptual floor INTRODUCTION however, with the abacus! Our challenge plans to determine adjacencies of Currently the Museum is working on the is to harness this fascination for the exhibit areas and potential traffic flow. Schematic Designs—the rough layout “next new thing” and to find ways to When we saw VSR’s visual inter- and look of the exhibitions—for our motivate our visitors to appreciate the pretation of our curatorial outlines for permanent home. This process is now achievements of the past as the the first time, we were surprised by the underway for our Timeline exhibit, which gadgets of their day. sheer scale required to accommodate will cover approximately 15,000 square text, photos, and audio-visuals in feet (s.f.) and focus on the milestones MUSEUM STEPS creating an exhibition rich in content. It of computing history. We are finding We are developing the curatorial outline looked nothing like our current Visible that while it is easy to select artifacts for the Museum’s future Timeline Storage Exhibit Area, with one machine for the Timeline, it is very hard to exhibit. The Timeline will be divided lined up next to another. The determine what to leave out, a problem into four eras, starting with pre- transformative power of context on an commonly faced by museums. We computing and ending with the Internet. artifact is truly amazing. struggle to tell the story of computer For each era, we have developed key history even in 15,000 s.f. Fortunately, messages that we want to convey and Our next steps are to develop we are also exploring ways to corresponding lists of potential Schematic Designs for the rest of our The Museum is working with exhibit designers to determine how our exhibits will complement the exhibits with online artifacts, images, diagrams, audio- exhibits, including the Theme Rooms. look and how best to use photographs and other supporting materials to exhibitions so that the World Wide Web visuals, and computer “interactives” Then we will begin the Design communicate key messages.