The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, is a truly amazing place. Even if you are not a geek like me, or indeed not a geek at all, it’s a wonderful walk through the evolution of computing, and provides unique and unexpected views into history.
Indeed, the Computer History Museum holds something for everyone – an hour and a half long tour held the attention of guests from 7 to 70. Now that’s saying something!
Starting with what is considered by most to be the dawn of modern computing, the abacus, the exhibits are truly something to behold. Moving along in time from the abacus, one passes an array of antique slide and cylinder rules, a difference engine, log books as thick as your arm, and a model of and genuine cards from a Jaquard loom (considered by some to be the first punch cards, and hence the first computer program). And that’s just in the pre-keyed machine area!
Then you move on to analog computers, computers made up of banks and banks of tubes, and computers bigger than most bedrooms in Silicon Valley. They have an Eniac and a Johnniac, And Crays 1, 2, and 3. They have an IBM 360, and the IBMs which came before that. A PDP10. And even the Neiman Marcus Kitchen Computer, which was offered at $10,600, came with a 1 1/2 day class, and never sold at all – not a one.
They had siamese monitors:
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the first analog computer:
and a honking big tube:
AND
They had this amazing bit of history – do you know what it is?:
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i keep one old computer “santaka”. maybe museum wants to buy it?
Hi,
this is definitely an enigma if you ask me!
Best regards
Tam Hanna
It does indeed look like an Enigma engine, that’s what I was thinking.
It looks a bit like an enigma engine; certainly the cog behind/next to the box tends to re-inforce that thought.