Sunday, April 2, 2023

Computer History Museum (Part 1) - Mountain View, CA

On 1 April, 2023, my dad and I went to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. The address of the museum is at 1401 N Shoreline Blvd, Mountain View, CA 94043. I had a great time geeking out on old technology. While most of the things I saw were way before my time (such as punch card programing), I had a great time seeing all of the Commodore computers, Apple computers, and the historic game consoles. I'm a total computer geek. 😂 It has been a decade since I went to this museum and I have been wanting to go again. I took cellphone photos at the museum, and the photos are split into 4 parts. I took way too many photos on this trip. I hope you enjoy viewing my photos.

Museum Tip: If you are a Bank of America customer and cardholder, you can visit many museums for free on the first full weekend of each month. You can find more information about the program here.

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

This is part 1 of my cellphone photos from the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.

Abacuses from China, Korea, Japan, and Russia.

Curta Calculators

IBM Dayton 26 LB Scale (1925)(left), International Time Recording Company Employee Time Clock (1913)(center), IBM Type 11 Electric Keypunch (1923)(right)
The clock in the center was used to keep record of employee work hours.

Telefunken RAT 700/2 Analog Computer (1959)

Enigma Machine (1935)

Books on FORTRAN Programming (1964)

Top Row (left to right): Fantasia Laserdisc (1991), TDK CD (2010), TDK DVD
Middle Row (left to right): Memorex 8" Floppy Disk (1974), 5.25" Floppy Drive (1976), Steve jobs with an Apple II (1979), 3M 5.25" Floppy Disk, Sony 3.5" Floppy Drive (1982), Iomega ZIP 100 Drive (1994), Iomega ZIP Disk (1994)
Bottom Row (left to right): IBM 3480 200MB Tape Cartridge (1984), DEC CompacTape Cartridge (1984), IBM 3850 50MB Mass Storage System Cartridge (1974)

Fun Fact: I'm still using my 3.5" floppy disks. These things are surprisingly resilient. I recently got a Dell USB floppy disk drive after pulling out 20+ year old floppies from the attic. The data were all still intact. Maybe that is why they don't have any 3.5" floppy disks on display at the museum. It is too recent. 😂 I back up small files onto them.

Left Column (top to bottom): Toshiba 1.8" Disk Drive for Apple iPod (2001), IBM Microdrive (1999), Conner Peripherals CP-344 42MB HDD (1983)
Right Column (top to bottom): Apple iPod 10GB (2002), SanDisk 1GB Memory Stick (2000)

Memorex 8" Floppy Disk (1974)

3M 5.25" Floppy Disk

Left Column (top to bottom): Atari Game Cartridge PCB (1976), Rio PMP300 MP3 Player (1998)
Right Column (top to bottom): SanDisk IBM SSD Module (1990), Atari Namco Pac-Man Game Cartridge (1982)

Silicon Wafers

Phonograph Recording Cylinder (1930)

Reproduction Incan Quipu
Incans used these between 1400AD to 1532 AD. It was knotted and used as record keeping devices.

Control Data Corporation Storage Cartridge (left), Verbatim DataLife 5.25" Floppy Disk (center), 3M DC 600A Data Cartridge (right)

IBM 7094 Console Computer (1962) used by NASA in Mercury & Gemini space flights.

UNIX Programmer's Manual (1971)(left), and Novelty UNIX License Plate (1980) & Novelty UNIX Button (1983)(right).

Neiman-Marcus/Honeywell Kitchen Computer (1969)
Neiman-Marcus in 1969 marketed this computer for the kitchen which costs $10,600. It also came with a cookbook, an apron, and a two week programming course. The computer portion was a Honeywell 316 minicomputer. None of it sold. I'm going to guess it was too expensive, too confusing, and too hard to use. This ended up being a failed product.

Texas Instruments Speak & Spell (1978)(top left), Sinclair ZX Spectrum (1982), Commodore PET Personal Computer (center), Fairchild "Channel F" Game Cartridges (1976)

This is all the photos for today. I hope you have enjoyed viewing the photos! Please don't forget to share the blog post with your friends and family members! Also, if you want to get notifications when I post up more photos, "Like" us on Facebook or follow me on Instagram. These links can also be found on the top of the right sidebar.

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4