Slashdot Mirror
Australian Computer Museum Needs a Saviour
femto writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is
reporting that the
Australian Computer Museum (archive.org) is to
close due to lack of funds. It is the largest computer collection in Australia. Failing an offer of a permanent home, they need storage space or money to pay for it. They also need some way to sort the collection."
Beyond the /. crowd, nobody really cares. They need to somehow figure out how to appeal to a broader audience. This isn't meant to be a troll, I believe it's the truth.
Wouldn't chonologically be the obvious way?
I hate grammar Nazi's.
I think old computers are ugly. I can appreciate the old mechanical machines, they are a true work of art, but old boxes of transistors and PCB's are just not pleasing in any way.
If some work went into aesthetic design (e.g. Apple) or were exceptioanlly groundbreaking or they defined culture (e.g. old arcade cabinets) they would be interesting but in my personal opinion they aren't (feel free not to share my point of view).
It is sort of like setting up an old dishwasher museum really. Technology has advanced but they're not that interesting to look at either.
Emulators preserve the real point of interest in old computers.
To keep this museum alive.
Sure it may only hold 100 years of information right now (a guess on years) but give it another 100 to 200 years our great great great grandchildren will want to see our first computers.
It's easier to save the hardware now instead of trying to find it in the next 100 years.
Pretty much the same is happening in the UK with Bletchley Park, with no government funding these museums are dying away. Perhaps it's because they are deemed as modern history (after all, computing has only really taken off in the last 60 years), or because the majority of the public just don't understand anything beyond their TV remote control, but it's a shame nonetheless. Bletchley should be relabelled as something "non-geeky", and the Australian one should be merged with a larger industrial museum, after all, these are the machines that took the Industrial Age onto the Information Age...
A Tech University (the MIT equivalent in OZ, for example) is the logical spot for such a thing, then the nerds have easy access, causual visitors can lookin in, and the average citizen can opt for the Wax Museum instead.
Yeah, I guess I'm funny like that.
"They can be quite interesting, but how many people are interested in that motherboard from the 80's?"
I doubt very much that such a museum would be bothered about displaying old PC motherboards at all.
Most of the good stuff would be from the late seventies and really early eighties, PC's that are totally unlike the ubiquitous x86 compats we know these days.
I'm talking about things such as the old Trash 80's and Commodore PETs. Being an Aussie museum I'm sure they even have a good selection of "Australias Own Personal Computer", the venerable Z80 based "microbee".
Those were the true glory days of computer hacking. The very first microbee's came as a PCB and a box of components. It was up to the owner to solder all the resistors, caps and chips into their proper places!
I saw a bloke once who wasn't quite clued up on the whole "solder" thing. He decided to superglue everything onto the PCB instead.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
how can the call it a museum if the stuff is not even sorted? it looks like a warehouse full of old computer parts that need to be sorted (not a museum). Maybe they should concentrate on sorting and taking out the good stuff before lobbying to have them saved.
did you forget to take your meds?
It also depends on the scale in which progress happened. The plough didn't change in many many centuries, and changes to it were progressive and slow. Same with many many technologies, but computing was so fast, and expansive, changing the way everything (including your "Mix" stations) operates. Nothing in the history of human kind has required such a constant learning curve, and such a dramatic upheaval of life as we know it. And this is not important enough to be put on display?
Who cares that my grand mother can still remember the days when the Panasonic factory was just fields? The timescale is irrelevant. Look at car museums, they're hardly THAT much older (add an extra 50 years), and yet they are massively popular. Why? Because they're sexy, computers aren't (especially old ones like the Commodore PET). Does this mean they are any less important? No. However, in my opinion, they should be showed in a correct, and informative context. I don't want to see some ancient mainframe system without seeing the impact of what it actually did. I want to see how these things have made our lives better (or worse). I want to see the impact they've had on the world. I don't want to see a room full of beige TVs.
Those were the days when this technology was still full of unknowns and dreams of possibilities were limitless. Just the word "computer" conjured images of electronic brains doing what was in our wildest imagination. Oh, the stories that were told in those days.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
An old calculator is interesting to play with, but it's not exactly a gem from emperor's crown. By that standard, most of us have a "museum" in some closet. They took everything offered and of course they ended up with a pile of useless junk that will be (and should be) thrown away.
So what's valuable? Well, for one thing technologies that are no longer used today, in components that are still functional and that people can understand by looking at them. Like a working punch card reader/writer, or the original "tty" dump terminal with a daisy wheel printer.
For most of other things, emulation is the way to go. There is something to be said for teaching CS101 using a computer where programs are entered by storing machine code in memory with dip switches and then explaining how things have evolved. But it's probably cheaper to just make a modern device with the same interface that fits in the pocket.
These people seem to be forgetting that they are storing computers - if they need a method of filing them I suggest they use the most recent computer in their archives. This would be making effective use of the resources until better funding could be arranged.