Washington D.C. Trip

From: Eric Chomko <chomko_at_greenbelt.com>
Date: Wed May 30 22:22:34 2001

My comments below.

Jason McBrien wrote:

> Didn't get anything from anywhere on my extended Memorial Day vacation to
> Washington D.C. (Mostly running through museums) But I highly reccomend it
> to anyone interested in historical computing devices. The main Smithsonian
> museums I went to were the American History Museum and the Air and Space
> museum. Both had special exhibits on information processing, and among the
> highlights are:
>
> American History Museum "The History of Information Processing"
> - An old mechanical logarithm calculator the size of a prone refrigerator
> - Two original German Enigma machines, the three-rotor and four-rotor
> models. These were
> AWESOME, and all the true hax0rs stood around them in awe.
> - The accumulators, main control pannel, power supplies and I/O tube grid
> from the Eniac.
> - A UNIVAC control unit.
> - The MANIAC main processor unit (HUGE box)
> - A Bendix mainframe, tape drive, and typewriter terminal
> - An old tube-based IBM mainframe with drum hard drive
> - An IBM/360 control unit.
> - A DEC PDP/8 with transparent card cage
> - A DEC PDP/15, the first computer used for fingerprint analysis by the FBI
> - A Xerox Altos, the machine Jobs & Woz "Borrowed" From, with a strange
> image
> screen-burned into the monitor.
> - Bugs taken from the DNC offices in the Watergate Building (Removed for
> "Further Study" :)
> -Various TI and HP calculators, 60's to 70's vintage, and a Pulsar watch
> (The first digital watch)
> - An Altair 8800, the original Apple I prototype model, and a Sol computer
> - A TRS-80 I, an IBM PC, Commodore 64 (Late vintage it looks) a Sun-I
> Workstation, and a Mac,
> all propped up on stacks of old Byte, Computerworld, and Misc. other
> magazines
> - Various other nick-nacks, like an original Mac system disk and brochure
> (If you can point, you can use a Mac) A HomeBrew Computer Club sweatshirt on
> a mannequin that a French couple mistook for Steve Jobs (I'm pretty sure he
> isn't, and has never been, of Asian descent. :) The camera used to broadcast
> the first televised Presidential debate, bunches of other stuff I've
> forgotten..
>

Short Wozniack video describing mircos, etc. Also, a display of early
microprocessors,
including the 4004, 8008, 8080, 6800. At least these were there 2 years ago when
I went.


>
> Air and Space Museum "Computers and Flight"
> -A Cray 1, S/N 0014. Installed at the Goddard space center, I belive.
>

Which building at Goddard? Cripes I work there and am unaware of a Cray in my
workplace
backyard!


Speaking of Goddard (GSFC), they have auctions and so called fixed-price sales
on a regular basis. I have a basement full of their stuff. Over half of my
collection has been purchased from GSFC auctions.
I'm sure I could break some hearts here describing some of the stuff that went
under the hammer and
what prices they fetched. Seen many a mainframe go to the scarp yard. The worst
case was an old SEL/Gould/Encore 32/77 that I recognized as a system that I
worked on for years.


> -Processor modules from an old model space shuttle (Can you say -
> over-engineering?)
> -Processor modules from the Iridium (defunct) system
> -A MicroVAX II (I have one! Horray!)
> -The slide rule Goddard used (Really classic computing :)
> -An ANCIENT IBM mini that I couldn't recognize. It's panels were off.
> - The last remaining piece of Sputnik; the pin used to keep the battery
> contacts of the transmitter open, pulled just before launch to activate the
> transmitter.
>
> Also, if you drive out to Rockville, a suburb of D.C., you can drive through
> this technology park and see Celera and the Human Genome Project, both
> within a mile of each other..

Please could you specify where in Rockville is the technology park? These would
be
excellent half day trips for me and my family.

Eric

P.S. I bought my SWTPC 6800 in Rockville, MD in 1976.
Received on Wed May 30 2001 - 22:22:34 BST