The Computer Graveyard - Computer History

Image Courtesy Hewlett-Packard Company Hewlett Packard Garage, 367 Addison Avenue, Palo Alto

As computer history interest grows, individuals and organisations are setting up other collections in different locations. In America, as more tech hubs emerge outside the East and west coast corridors, it suggests that before too long, it will be possible to visit a range - however limited - of computer history at any drivable distance. On the Internet, the Vintage Computer Festival and Classic Computing sites flag up numerous user-groups with an interest in preserving specific machines and associated material.

The Computer Museum History Centre is part of a Silicon Valley tech-trail, which stretches from the corporation museums, such as Intel, to the significant Tech Museum of Innovation affectionately known as the Tech - in San Jose. The trail includes the headquarters of household names and the space-time relationship, which is their evolution across Silicon Valley. In San Jose, the expanding Cisco buildings are little short of a form of monumental corporate architecture in style and scale. The development of a company's research headquarters as a campus has spawned significant landmarks, such as the Sun campus, which incorporates historical motifs in a mission-style in keeping with the area's architectural heritage.

Low-key in scale but highly significant historically are the founding locations of the significant companies. These include the garages associated with the early days of Apple and Hewlett Packard. In these buildings the first key developments were made. In Palo Alto, the company bought the Hewlett Package garage, with house attached, in late 2000 - for more than $1 million.