At 06:07 PM 11/24/99 -0500, you wrote:
>It is possible that something happened prior to your tenure... I can think
>of one report which has been much discussed at times on the alt.sys.pdp10
>newsgroup -- the dismantling of the pdp-6 gifted to the computer museum
>by Stanford. Since you are in a position to know... did this in fact
>happen? The reports have the flip chips from the machine being sold
>as trinkets.
Hi Megan,
My understanding of this issue is that the PDP-6 modules sold
at the Museum store were found in boxes in a DEC warehouse. At
the same time, TCM removed a piece of the '6 from display, leading folks to
conflate the two events, inferring that the pieces being sold were from
the one on the floor. The PDP-6 in question is coming back to the History
Center by December 20 (this year) as part of a.donation by Compaq
which is clearing out a little-known warehouse TCM used for deep storage.
I hope you will find this explanation satisfactory and that we can
put this issue behind us. I apologize on behalf of the Museum and History
Center that we perhaps did not communicate well with you and other
enthusiasts about the machine in question. It took some time to reconsruct
an event from a long time ago.
If you have specific concerns about other machines, please let me know. I
am eager
to address cogent criticisms of TCM (the past) or the History Center (the
present & future)
at any time and to work with you all in advancing the state of the art in
computer
preservation--we have many unique problems that are fascinating to think
about and
solve, ones that everyone can contribute to remedying.
[snip: re visiting the west coast]
>>2. Get involved! The Center belongs to the community that supports it
>> and we have dozens of important tasks (both real and virtual) that
>> need to be done and that can draw on the talents of everyone. Drop me
>> a line if you're interested.
>
>Great if you happen to live nearby... but what can one do from the
>east coast to help?
Plenty! We have many "virtual volunteer" opportunities. One of the
greatest needs is
to transcribe computer history lecture for the web. This is of tremendous
use to
scholars because it is a searchable version of the lectures we hold with
some of
the computer industry's most important contributors. Past speakers have
included:
Bob Noyce, Jay Forrester, Grace Hopper, Doug Engelbart, Maurice Wilkes,
Seymour Cray--an amazing list that covers 20 years of computer history!
For a typical transcript, have a look at:
http://www.computerhistory.org/events/sage_05191998/index.page
Also, these transcripts are soon to be supplemented by
RealVideo/RealAudio/MP3 media streams
of the lecture. We have posted Godron Moore's lecture from last month
on-line as an example:
http://www.technetcast.com/tnc_program.html?program_id=54
Might this appeal?
>>3. Visit our website (www.computerhistory.org) and offer suggestions or
>> curate a virtual exhibit! Our site receives well over 2 million hits
>> a month--what a way to get the word out about computer history!
>
>I like that idea... what if your site linked to the private sites of
>numerous collectors (take a look at my own site, for example).
We hope to have a "Links" page within the next 60 days.
>>4. Have your own sites linked to (or even archived) by the Center as a
>> way of bringing attention to your specific area of interest.
>
>You're ahead of me... what do you mean by archived? I would think that
>private sites would be kept up by the owner...
One of the concerns we have at the Center is that while there are superb
computer history sites out there run by individuals, there is no
institutional architecture for ensuring that they can continue past the
sponsor's lifetime or (much more likely) even five years. As you know,
some of these sites are simply superb and irreplaceable resources whose
loss would be gravely felt. If we take the geological timescale into
account (50 years for computers!), there is a real concern that such
wonderful resources might no longer be maintained after some finite amount
of time. I think you'll agree this is a pretty reasonable conclusion.
Consequently, the Center would like to host (perhaps
'park' is a better word? -- since we would have no content oversight
whatsoever) high quality sites in computer history allowing these sites to
make use of the Center's stable infrastructure (including regular backups,
&c.) We haven't worked all the details yet--for example, how to handle
updates and so on. If anyone on the list would like to serve as a test
case, please contact me and we can experiment!
>
>Thanks for taking the time to write to the list...
>
> Megan Gentry
> Former RT-11 Developer
All the best Megan--thanks for caring!
d.
--
Dag Spicer
Curator & Manager of Historical Collections
Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
The Computer Museum History Center
Building T12-A
NASA Ames Research Center
Mountain View, CA 94035
Tel: +1 650 604 2578
Fax: +1 650 604 2594
E-m: spicer_at_computerhistory.org
WWW: http://www.computerhistory.org
<spicer_at_computerhistory.org> PGP: 15E31235 (E6ECDF74 349D1667 260759AD
7D04C178)
S/V 516T
Read about The Computer Museum History Center in the
November issue of WIRED magazine! See "The Computer
Hall of Fame - Modern Art." pp. 276 - 299.
Received on Thu Nov 25 1999 - 11:12:21 GMT