A Trip Down Computer Memory Lane

News.com has an interesting stroll down memory lane with a look at the "DigiBarn", a collection of technology from early mechanical calculators to modern web appliances. NASA contractor Bruce Damer and partner Alan Lundell run this "museum in transition" from a 19th-century farmhouse deep in the Santa Cruz mountains. In addition to notable success milestones, the company also includes some of the industry failures, like an Apple III Damer acquired from Apple's legal department.

Comments

wooo

[sepelester]

Could be called RAM Drive, but Computer Memory Lane is cool too

Handy link to TFA

[iaculus]

Post links to second page; first page at http://news.com.com/A+trip+down+computer+memory+la ne/2100-1042_3-6203311.html and almost-ad-free print version at http://news.com.com/2102-1042_3-6203311.html?tag=s t.util.print

Go on. Read the article. You know you want to. You'll find out why the museum has to be packed up every winter, and learn that Apple had a portable music player as far back as 1979. And more!

Accuracy

[spacefrog]

Articles like this do more harm then good when they are filled with inaccuracies.

Not everything in the collection is Apple, though. There's also an original 1979 Osborne I--one of the first computers my father ever owned--the giant suitcase-size portable computer, and a Kaypro II, which helped kill the Osborne due to its smaller, sleeker design.

The Osborne I was introduced in 1981. The Kaypo II (there was no Kaypro I) was slightly larger then the Osborne, and weighed 6 pounds more.

This article is crap.

Why no link to the actual museum?

[ruiner13]

Is it that hard to put a link to the actual museum instead of to page 2 of an article that talks about said museum? Are the mods asleep today?

I come from that era

[kurt555gs]

I remember when I got my 1st Radio Shack Model 1. I remember when I bought a Kaypro II. ( I still have it ). I remember how much I loved writing Z80 Assembler on CP/M.

I started out fooling around with these computers, sharing information on CP/M bulletin boards, learning how computers worked from the ground up.

I also remember having the opportunity to meet industry leaders like George Morrow, and work for Takioshi Shiina of SORD computer of Japan. I got to travel, and live in Japan working for SORD.

I remember COMDEX when there were competing operating systems and unique hardware before Microsoft got a strangle hold on innovation and creative thinking.

I remember a time where software patents were unheard of and the thought that ideas for software not the software itself could be owned by some one.

I think of how lucky I have been being able to work on projects where the ideas of creative people not the lawyers and accountants counted the most.

I have been lucky to have grown up in that time.

Thank you Mr Shiina

Cheers

I was a packrat. Now I'm a technolgy archivist...

[dharmadove]

They should take some of the crap in my garage. My retirement investment. You never know when someone might want a Type 80 rectifier, CK722s, BC-348, RTL chips, JSR Model 15, 1401 core memory, bubble memory, 8080, etc... Not mention the magazines / books, LOTS of books. My wife loves it. Not...