Slashdot Mirror

I visited Boston for the first time at the end of last year. I had a few days spare, so the Boston Computer Museum was an obvious visit. Finding that it had been absorbed into the Museum of Science wasn't too bad, but what happened to all the exhibits ? Shipped out to storage in California and "... The Best Software for Kids Gallery(TM), now part of an expanded Cahners ComputerPlace". - Just as you describe, it had been reduced to a trivialised version of MSN.

I've a better computer museum in my own shed 8-(

OK, so the Virtual FishTank is excellent, but that's an exhibit on behaviours, not on computer history.

obkarmawhore: Not quite computers, but immensely cool electrical oddities.

Here is one. (seems to be down at the moment)
And here is another.

The Computer Museum's Computer History Timeline has a lot more detail.

Of course, for Internet history, there's Hobbes' Internet Timeline, and of course Charles Spurgeon's Ethernet Web Site (not focused on the Internet, but a major bit of networking history).

I seem to remember seeing something that indicated that the first commercial microprocessor-based computer was French;

Found it. This page from the Computer Museum Web site says that "The Micral was the earliest commercial, non-kit personal computer based on a micro-processor, the Intel 8008."

I also seem to remember the name "Philippe Kahn" (yes, that Philippe Kahn) associated with it.

It also says "Thi Truong developed the computer and Philippe Kahn the software."

The SCELBI 8H is the first computer that I would classify as a PC. It was based on a microprocessor (Intel 8008) and in commercial production.