Computer museum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A computer museum is a collection of vintage computer hardware and software. Computer museums are rarely physical museums, but rather personal collections owned by retrocomputing hobbyists. Many computer museums are freely available to view publicly online through websites. Computers often found in computer museums include Apple IIs, older Apple Macintoshes, Commodore International's, Amigas, IBM PCs and more rare computers such as the Osborne 1.
The largest computer museum in the world has been claimed by Computer History Museum(Heinz Nixdorf Museum, also claims this title), which preserves and presents the computing revolution and its impact on the human experience. The Computer History Museum has the largest number of exhibits and collections of any other computer museum. Most public computer museums include the Apple I and Altair 8800 as exhibits.
Computer museum websites are widely popular because they document a large number of computers. The most popular is old-computers.com, first opened online in 1996. As of 2006, it includes 935 computers, 84 consoles and 98 pongs. However, old-computers.com is missing many vintage systems such as the Macintosh Classic from 1990.
Microsoft have their own computer museum at their headquarters which is open to the public, and at one time Apple Computer also had a museum open to the public.
[edit] Some computer museums
This list is incomplete. See also Category:Computer museums.
- American Computer Museum, the oldest currently operating one
- Computer History Museum, the largest
- DigiBarn Computer Museum in Boulder Creek, California
- Rhode Island Computer Museum
- The Computer Museum, Boston, closed in 1999
- Personal Computer Museum in Brantford, Ontario, Canada
- Heinz Nixdorf Museum in Paderborn, Germany (also claims to be the largest)
- The Centre for Computing History in Haverhill, Suffolk, UK Computer Museum
