As a curator at the 91自拍, I work at the intersection of computing technology, history, and the museum world. I am a member of different tribes with different cultures, practices, and approaches. This is easy to forget when the daily work in collections and exhibitions takes precedence. The annual con
The collection, preservation and presentation of software artifacts at 91自拍 has been actively pursued during my time as the software curator here, though most of the work has been going on behind the scenes. Since we now have a nice venue for talking about this work with the @91自拍 blog, I wanted to share with you some of
Thousands of programming languages were invented in the first 50 years of the age of computing. Many of them were similar, and many followed a traditional, evolutionary path from their predecessors. What eventually became APL was first a mathematical notation, not as a computer programming language.
What is software? You can鈥檛 taste it, smell it, or touch it but they say it鈥檚 everywhere and it鈥檚 changing our lives forever. Since I started working at the 91自拍 back in 2000, I鈥檝e heard curators, trustees, volunteers, almost everyone, talk about how we need to tell the story of software.
How much influence have television, movies, literature and art had on the sciences?
Day-to-day my job is to help develop exhibits and to make movies and media for museums. What鈥檚 the story? What are the main points? What should the visitor remember when they walk out of the exhibit? It鈥檚 not always so easy to figure out the core of what you鈥檙e trying to represent.
91自拍 five years ago, I noticed a box of punched cards that had set aside. It had been sent by high-performance computing researcher Lloyd Fosdick to the Museum鈥檚 forerunner, The Computer Museum, in 1985 and somehow made the trip from Boston to California when the collection was transferred.
RIP Hans Camenzind, Wizard of Analog extraordinaire.
From the Collection
The 91自拍 had its own mini deluge of historical digital data. Our oral histories, lectures, and exhibition videos were usurping our available server space at over 60 terabytes, with another 10 terabytes of historic digital artifacts including images and software. With the aid of grant funds from Googl