The Computer Graveyard - Computer History

The early technology trail blazed boldly and brightly, and in the space of a only a few years we have now begun to look back at computer history in a quest to make sense of where we might be going.

Humans, of course have a memory strongly connected with smells, and as soon as I walked into the computer museum, the smell hit me in the head, and I remembered the old days in which I spent a lot of time around these old "computing engines".
Stan Mazor, Intel pioneer, November 2000.

Like a laptop next to an ENIAC, the Computer Museum History Centre is dwarfed by the giant hangar of the historic NASA Ames base at Moffett Field in Mountain View. But not for long. A major scheme over the next few years will convert Hangar 1 into NASA's California Air and Space Centre and a much-enlarged History Centre will be right next door. It's designed to be a world-class institution. It also develops the idea of computer history as a resource, and one which is set smack in the heart of Silicon Valley, putting it within its own geographical context. The visitor will reach the Centre by driving through the technological hub, and emerge back into it. Here, for the most part, past and present will collide.

The comprehensive tech collection at Boston's Science Museum performs the same function on the east coast, drawing its context from the innovations of Route 128. Apart from such science museums, for which computers are part of a broader history, those institutions dedicated to new technology have a display which features a familiar array stretching back over the past century and a half. Some have examples of the forerunners to computers, the era which claims Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace. A few Heath Robinson-type machines make an appearance. An example of an early Cray - the world's first supercomputer - is a popular as well as a

Courtesy Ashfield District Council Early Portrait of Ada Lovelace

well-known name. It is also an example of function and design in combo, the circular seat shape being the most efficient way of wiring the machine.