VMoC

Charles Babbage↑'s Difference Engine↑ at the Science Museum, London↑.

Virtual Library

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VMoC

The Virtual Museum of Computing (VMoC↑)

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Robin Milner↑ (1934–2010), pioneer of automated theorem proving, programming language design, and concurrent systems, died on 20th March 2010.

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This virtual museum↑ includes an eclectic collection of World Wide Web (WWW) hyperlinks connected with the history of computing↑ and online computer-based exhibits available both locally and around the world. It was founded on 1 June 1995, so is an example of an "old" virtual museum itself.

This museum opened on 1^st June 1995. The museum receives about 200 visitors each day. Please contact Jonathan Bowen if you know of relevant online information not included here.

Older Mirror sites are available in Sweden and USA courtesy of ICOM, and also elsewhere.

Selected additions and events

• Peter Landin (1930-2009), pioneer of functional programming and denotational semantics, died on 3rd June 2009.
• David Wheeler (1927-2004), inventor of the closed subroutine, died on 13 December 2004.
• Program Verification and Semantics: Further Work, seminar, Science Museum, London, 2 December 2004.
• Edgar (Ted) Codd (1923-2003), inventor of the relational database model, died on 18 April 2003.
• Roger Needham (1935-2003) died on 28 February 2003.
• Allan Bromley, who researched Charles Babbage's drawings of the Difference Engine extensively in the London Science Museum archive, died in August 2002. This work led to the building of the Difference Engine No. 2, now on display in the Science Museum Computing Gallery in London.
• Edsger Wybe Dijkstra (1930-2002), died on 6 August 2002. See obituary.
• Both co-inventors of Simula 67, the first object-oriented programming language, died in 2002.
  Ole-Johan Dahl (1931-2002) died on 29 June 2002.
  Kristen Nygaard (1926-2002) died on 10 August 2002.
• Business Computing: the Second 50 Years, The Guildhall, London, UK, 5-6 November 2001. A conference celebrating the 50th anniversary of LEO, the world's first business computer. See programme.
• Program Verification and Semantics: The Early Work, seminar, Science Museum, London, 5 June 2001.
• Tom Kilburn (1921-2001), Manchester University, UK, died on 17 January 2001.
• William Hewlett (1913-2001), co-founder of HP, died on 12 January 2001.
• Donald Davies (1924-2000), packet switching pioneer at NPL, died on 28 May 2000. See ISOC information.
• ACE 2000 CONFERENCE 50th anniversary of the ACE computer, Science Museum, London, 18 May 2000 & National Physical Laboratory, UK, 19 May 2000.
• EDSAC 99, 50th Anniversary of the EDSAC 1 computer, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK, 15-16 April 1999.
• 50th Anniversary of Joe Lyons' decision to give the go ahead to the building of LEO 1, 15 October 1999.
• Tommy Flowers, MBE, codebreaking engineer at Bletchley Park who worked on Colossus, died on 28 October 1998, aged 92. (Born on 22 December 1905.)
• In Memory of Internet Pioneer Jon Postel, died October 1998.
  See also tribute from IANA and In Memoriam from the Domain Name Handbook
  (Memorial service, 5 November 1998.)
• 50th Anniversary of the First Stored-Program Computer, Manchester, UK, 21 June 1998.
• Memorials to Alan Turing - a new English Heritage blue plaque memorial as Code-breaker and Pioneer of Computer Science was unveiled by Andrew Hodges (Turing's biographer) at his birthplace in London, UK, on Turing's 86th birthday, 23 June 1998.
• International Conference on the History of Computing, Paderborn, Germany, 14-16 August 1998.
• Computers in Europe: Past, Present and Future International Symposium, Kiev, Ukraine, 6-8 October 1998.
• 1st Vintage Computer Festival, Alameda County Fairgrounds, Pleasanton, California, USA, 25-26 October 1997.
• Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, San Jose, California, USA, 19-21 September 1997.

See also other History of Computing conferences.

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Local virtual exhibits

• Pioneers of Computing by the museum's "virtual director", Jonathan Bowen.
• The Alan Turing Home Page by the museum's first "virtual curator", Andrew Hodges, author of Alan Turing: The Enigma. See also AlanTuring.net, the Turing Archive for the History of Computing.
• Charles Babbage (1791-1871) including the Difference Engine.
• Mandelbrot Exhibition.
• A Brief History of Algebra and Computing.
• John V. Atanasoff: Obituary (June 1995).
• Early Microprocessor Instruction Set Cards.
• N-dimensional cubes, including program code to generate them.
• Computer graphics image archive, including moving images.
• 3-D and SIRDS images, including Virtual Reality.
• Computer audio.
• A selection of organizations with WWW servers, including many major computing, electronics and telecoms corporations.
• Lionising Leo: Review of The World's First Business Computer: User-Driven Innovation, D.T. Caminer (ed.), McGraw-Hill, 1996.

Items marked are especially recommended.

If you would like to volunteer to be a virtual curator on some aspect of the history of computing, please get in touch, preferably with a URL↑ for the "gallery" or online exhibit which you would like included.

The museum has no online shop as yet, but feel free to try some virtual shopping.

You may also be interested in a list of books on the history of computing, available for sale from Blackwell's Bookshop, Oxford.

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Corporate history and overviews

• Acorn: A technical history. An early home computer manufacturer based in Cambridge, UK.
• Amdahl: US company founded by IBM System/360 architect Gene Amdahl, now owned by Fujitsu.
• Apple: History, California, USA. Personal computer manufacturer found by Jobs and Wozniak, only real competition to the IBM PC. See also apple-history.com.
• AT&T: Research history. Telecommunications company where the transistor (1947) and Unix operating system were invented. See also the first electrical digital computer (1939).
• Compaq: News, USA. PCs; second largest computing company having bought Digital in January 1998.
• Control Data Corporation (CDC): About Control Data, USA. First supercomputer (CDC6600) manufacturer.
• Corel: News, USA. Software including WordPerfect.
• Cray: A Company Overiew, USA. Supercomputer manufacturer. Bought by Silicon Graphics.
• Data General: Corporate Information, USA. Early minicomputer manufacturer.
• Digital: Computing Timeline, Massachusetts, USA. Early minicomputer manufacturer. See 40th Anniversary (23 August 1997).
• Hewlett-Packard (HP): History, California, USA. Includes the founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard.
• IBM: Archives and About IBM, USA.
• ICL: History of Ownership and Flotation, UK.
• Intel: In Brief and museum, California, USA. The company who introduced the world's first microprocessor in 1971.
• James Martin & Co.: Our Company History. Methodology and process management, founded in 1981. See also the James Martin Professor of Computing.
• J. Lyons & Co.: First business computer (Lyons Electronic Office - LEO) manufacturer, UK.
• Logica: About Logica, London, UK. A leading international software house, founded in 1969.
• Microsoft: History, Seattle, USA. Largest PC software company in the world. See Microsoft Museum.
• Rational Software: Company history, USA. Software application development support company, founded in 1981.
• NeXT: California, USA. Founded by Steve Jobs after leaving Apple, now reconsumed by Apple.
• Olivetti: The story, Italy. From typewriters to IT, telecommunications and multimedia.
• Oracle: About Oracle, USA. World's largest vendor of information management software.
• Silicon Graphics (SGI): Corporate Overview, California, USA. A workstation manfacturer, concentrating on high-quality graphics, founded in the early 1980s.
• Sun: Corporate Information: History, California, USA. A leading workstation manufacturer, founded in 1982.
• Unisys: History Newsletter, USA. Information about UNIVAC, Sperry, Burroughs etc.
• Xilinx: About the Company, USA. Introduced the first Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) in 1985.

More online history from other computer companies not mentioned above would be especially welcome for inclusion.

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History of computing organizations

• Australian Computer Museum Society Inc (ACMS).
• Charles Babbage Institute (CBI), Center for the History of Information Processing, University of Minnesota, USA. Dedicated to the preservation of the history of information processing. See exhibits and Iterations: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Software History, launched in 2001.
• Computer Conservation Society, UK. A co-operative venture between the British Computer Society (BCS) and the Science Museum in London. See Our Computer Heritage, a three-year project.
• Computer History Association of California (CHAC), USA. Newsletters, archive materials, and other information and files. See History Pages.
• Historical Computer Society (HCS), USA. See a planned virtual computer history museum including a chronology of computer history from 3000BC and a virtual tour of microcomputer history.
• The History Of Computing Project Foundation (THOCP), The Netherlands. Founded April 2000. See museums you should visit.
• International Charity Foundation for History and Development of Computer Science and Technique (ICFCST), Kiev, Ukraine. See virtual museum.
• LEO Computers Society, UK.
• National Archive for the History of Computing, University of Manchester, UK. Includes a catalogue of manuscripts and further sources.

See also:

• Association for History and Computing (AHC) which holds annual conferences and published the History and Computing journal.
• ACM 50th Anniversary Celebration (1947-1997). (See also text only page). ACM97 - The Next 50 years of Computing. San Jose, California, USA, 1-5 March 1997, including a conference. Part of the 100 year journey of computing (1947-2047).
• Toronto PET Users Group (TPUG), Canada. The oldest Commodore computer club, founded in 1978. Supports nearly all Commodore computers, including the PET, SuperPET, CBM, Amiga, etc., and the COMAL, CP/M and GEOS environments.
• Vintage Computer Festival, California, USA. An annual event. See links.

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General historical information

• 50 years of the transistor (1997).
• AlanTuring.net, the Turing Archive for the History of Computing. See Alan Turing's Automatic Computing Engine (ACE).
• BCPL, a programming language designed by Martin Richards in 1966.
• A Brief History of the Internet by Barry Leiner, Vinton Cerf et al. from the Internet Society.
• A Brief History of the Internet by Bruce Sterling.
• A Brief History of the Joint Network Team (1979-1994), developers of the JANET academic network in the UK, by Bob Cooper.
• Brief History of Networking - important dates, including telephones and digital years.
• A Brief History of the Rice Computer (1959-1971).
• Centre for the History of Defence Electronics (CHiDE), Bournemouth University, UK. Includes a planned virtual museum on radar, sonar, communications and electronic counter-measures.
• Chronology of Events in the History of Microcomputers by Ken Polsson.
• Chronology of Digital Computing Machines (to 1952) by Mark Brader.
• The Computer Archive - the Weinreb collection.
• Engineering.html Computer Engineering section of the NSF SUCCEED Engineering Visual Database, USA. A good set of photographic and other pictorial resources.
• Computer History Project, Uppsala University, Sweden.
• Computer Science: History of Computers links from Study Web.
• Computers: From the Past to the Present, a lecture presented by Michelle A. Hoyle.
• Computers: History and Development from Jones Multimedia Encyclopedia.
• Computing section of the Media History Project Connections Pages.
• CSIRAC: The Birth of Computing in Australia in 1949, including a chronology. First stored-memory electronic computer in Australia (1949-1964). See also Guide to the Records of CSIRAC incluidng a photo gallery.
• Dinosaurs mating (humour) and other entries from the Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing (FOLDOC).
• The Early Development of POP by Prof. Robin Poppleston.
• Early Years at Manchester University, UK. Includes information on and photographs of the prototype for the Ferranti Mark I computer, presented and authorized by Tommy Thomas.
• The Electronic Labyrinth, a study of hypertext technology, including a time line.
• An Embedded History - Part 2 and Part 3 from Embedded Update electronic newsletter on embedded systems.
• English Electric DEUCE Computer by John Barrett.
• The First Email Message sent by Ray Tomlinson (1972).
• First Generation Computers, including the Bendix G-15 (1956).
• Forty Years On: An Anniversary Volume (1957-1997), Department of Computing, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, edited by Barry Hodgson and Brian Randell.
• Greatest moments of computer history are speeding up. Omega Point expected around 2040!
• Great Microprocessors of the Past and Present by John Bayko (Tau). This guide covers unique and representative designs from the beginning in the early 1970s until now.
• The Hidden History of the Internet, Pretext Magazine, March 1998.
• History of Computing Information including the ENIAC and Historic Computer Images collected by Mike Muuss.
• History of Computation course by Prof. John Tucker, Department of Computer Science, University of Wales Swansea.
• History of Computers course material from North Carolina State University, USA. (No hyperlinks.)
• History of computing↑ and the Virtual Museum of Computing↑ on Wikipedia↑.
• History of Computing from the IEEE Computer Society. See Events in the History of Computing by year, including many images and photographs, the Timeline of Computer History (68 page 1.5 Mbyte PDF format file) and J.A.N. Lee's looking.back column.
• History of Computing. A lecture prepared by Michelle Hoyle for an introductory Computer Science class about the history of computing devices, starting from the development of computing and progressing through to the late 1980s. Includes colour slides.
• The History of Computing at Los Alamos including the Z1 to Z4 computers designed by Konrad Zuse.
• History of Computing Research Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick by Martin Campbell-Kelly et al. See also research outline.
• History of Computing list of publications and the original NATO Software Engineering Conference reports by Prof. Brian Randell.
• The History of Computing, an index of online resources by John A. N. Lee, Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. See The Machine That Changed the World.
• History of Computing links by Horst Zuse, son of the computer pioneer Konrad Zuse.
• History of Emoticons from the Official Smiley Dictionary.
• History of the Department, Basser Computing Laboratory, University of Sydney, Australia. Includes the SILLIAC computer.
• History of the Internet from the Pacific Science Center, USA.
• History of the Internet, including an excellent timeline using Java, part of Life on the Internet by PBS, USA.
• The History of the Internet by Dave Kristula.
• The History of Modern Computers and their Inventors by Mary Bellis.
• History of Parallel Computing. Chronology of major developments in parallel computing and supercomputing.
• History of the Perl programming langugae.
• The History of Project Delta, high school computing in the 1960's and 70's, Delaware, USA.
• Hobbes' Internet Timeline - important Internet dates and statistics.
• IBM 1130 Computing System. See emulator.
• IBM 1620 history site.
• IEEE Computer Society: A History, USA. Publishers of the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing journal. Founded by 1946, the society celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1996.
• ILLIAC I, University of Illinois, USA. Includes information on the history of computer music.
• i-MB: The History of Computing, 1937-2000 by period/year. The main events in the history of computing. (More information for recent years.)
• The Internet Archive. See the WWW History Project.
• Konrad Zuse Internet Archive. (Also in German.)
• Lexikon Services Publishing "History of Computing". An electronic 850 page encyclopedia on diskette. Includes A Brief Chronology of Historical Firsts in Computers (1939-1981).
• Lisp History.
• LivingInternet.com, a comprehensive online reference source about the Internet.
• LLNL Computing: War Stories and Anecdotes including Picture History of LLNL Computers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, USA.
• Logic through History - Aristotle to Von Neumann.
• 50th Anniversary of the First Stored-Program Computer (21 June 1998), the Manchester Mark 1 Computer, including a picture gallery.
• The Modern History of Computing, Stanford University, USA.
• Multics. An influential operating system, begun in 1965 and used until 2000. See history.
• Multi-University/Research Laboratory talks at the Computer Museum:
  • Dawn of Electronic Computing, 1935-1945, Dr. Gordon Bell (1/1/1996)
  • The First Computers, 1946-1950, Dr. Gordon Bell (1/1/1996)
  • Stretch: The Technological Link Between Yesterday and Tomorrow, Dr. Gordon Bell (1/1/1996)
  • Design and Use of Colossus, Dr. Tom Flowers (10/15/1981)
  • Design and Use of Colossus (Part 2), Dr. Tom Flowers (10/15/1981)
• Past Notable Women of Computing including Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852).
• History of Computing and the Internet including the History of Women in Computing by Janet Abbate.
• Pegasus, a vintage British computer, first produced by Ferranti Ltd in 1956. Information by Prof. Simon Lavington.
• The Present at the Creation of the ARPAnet, the precursor of the Internet (1969).
• Programming in C: History.
• A Short History of the Computer by Jeremy Meyers.
• StudyWeb: Computer Science: History of Computers links from StudyWeb.
• Totalisator History - an Australian achievement.
• Triumph of the Nerds, a PBS series, including a history of the computer timeline.
• UNIVAC^® Memories - history of UNIVAC 1100 series mainframes.
• Untangling the Web including a Timeline of Hypertext (3000BC-1996AD) by David Aden and John Stanard.
• Usenet history project from ECHO: Exploring and Collecting History Online. See also some history and 20 Year Usenet Archive from Google Groups.
• Vintage Calculators from X-Number World of Calculators.
• The Webstory.com. UK BBC/Open University TV series, 1998.
• Why Computers are Computers, a book by David Rutland, including excerpts and some answers to FAQs.
• The World Wide Web History Project by the Internet Archive.
• WWW Hot Topics: Unix 25th Anniversary in 1994.

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Computer-related museums

1. American Computer Museum, Bozeman, Montana, USA.
2. American University Computing History Museum, Washington DC, USA.
3. Bletchley Park Trust, near Milton Keynes, UK. "Britain's Best Kept Secret." See Computer Museum. See also Codes and Ciphers in the Second World War by Tony Sale and the British Bombe rebuild project.
4. Commercial Computing Museum (Commputerseum), Ontario, Canada. Dedicated to the acquisition, preservation, and exhibition of artifacts and memorabilia from the commercial use of electronic, digital computers. Includes a list of Computer History Web Sites.
5. The Computer History Museum, Moffett Field, California, USA.
6. The Computer Museum, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Started by Ken Olsen, ex-president of Digital Equipment Corporation. Part of the Museum of Science since 1999. See Computer Clubhouse.
7. Computer Museum, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Specializes in scientific and industrial computing. Includes electronic calculators, analog computers, core memory and paper tape.
8. Computer Museum, Department of Computer Science, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.
9. Computer Museum of America, Coleman College, La Mesa, San Diego, California, USA. See sample collections and The Evolution of Computing slide show.
10. The DigiBarn Computer Museum, California, USA. See Xerox Alto 30th birthday.
11. Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum, Paderborn, Germany. See computer museum. (In German.)
12. The Intel Museum, Santa Clara, California, USA. Micro-chips, from the company who manufactured the first microprocessor in 1971.
13. Microsoft Museum. (Warning: may crash Netscape browsers! ;-)
14. Musée d'Histoire Informatique (Computer History Museum). A virtual museum on personal computers from 1978 onwards, by Philippe Dubois. See also the Pong story on the first video game. (In French.)
15. Museu Virtual da Informática, Portugal. A virtual museum including a number of computers such as the ENIAC. (Mostly in Portuguese.)
16. Museum of Computer Technology, Denver, Colorado, USA.
17. Museum of HP Calculators (MoHPC). Learn about reverse Polish notation!
18. Museum of Computing, Swindon, UK.
19. Museum "Waalsdorp", The Netherlands. See computer history of the TNO Physics and Electronics Laboratory since 1927. Supercomputers, minicomuters, etc., with many photographs. (In Dutch and some English.)
20. National Cryptologic Museum, National Security Agency, Maryland, USA. See tour of exhibits.
21. National Museum of Computing Instruments, Pisa, Italy. Includes QuickTime VR plugin movies. (In Italian.)
22. National Museum of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Brasília, Brazil.
23. Personal Computer Museum, Stenungsund, Sweden. In the Guinness Book of Records because of its collection of 250 different personal computers.
24. Rhode Island Computer Museum, USA.
25. The Science Museum, London, UK. See Computing and Information Technology collection, the Computing Then and Now gallery information Babbage's Calculating Engines, 1832-71 and the Pilot ACE 1950. Alternatively, see the recommended Computing Then and Now page from the Treasures of the Science Museum online exhibit. See also the recently acquired Phillips Economic Hydraulic Computer, first demonstrated at the London School of Economics in November 1949.
26. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, USA. Computer History, including an Information Age Tour, the collaborative Innovation Network, and oral/video history interviews with computing personalities. See also From Carbons to Computers including links to resources.
27. Tech Museum of Innovation, San Jose, California, USA. Includes a microelectronics exhibit.
28. Telemuseum, Sweden. History of telecommunications.
29. The Topeka Computing Museum, Kansas, USA.
30. University of California at Davis Computer Science Museum, USA. Includes a timeline of computer history.
31. York University Computer Museum, Toronto, Canada.

See also:

• Computer museums listed by Yahoo.

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Online exhibits and information

The following are virtual museums or exhibitions:

• The Apple Museum.
• The Apple / Macintosh Museum.
• The Atari Exhibit.
• Atari History Museum.
• BESM-6 Nostalgia Page. Soviet mainframe computer.
• Compukit UK101. Early UK microcomputer kit.
• Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-8 index.
• Digital Mona Lisa, 1965.
• Eniac Virtual Museum, School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Pennsylvania, USA. Celebration of the 50th anniversary of ENIAC in 1996.
• European Museum on Computer Science and Technology in Ukraine from ICFCST. See the early BESM, MESM and SESM computers. (Also in Ukrainian and Russian.)
• Fee Computer Services Museum, UK. IBM systems of the 1960s and 1970s (360s and 370s).
• First Virtual Mousepad Museum, The Netherlands.
• Generations: Through the History of Computing. A virtual tour (1960-1996). Transistors, integrated circuits, microprocessors, etc.
• German Web Computer Museum by Clemens Weller, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany. Personal computers, printers, software, etc. See computer collections. (In German and English.)
• George Graham and Bill Gates: A Study in Architectural Dominance, a virtual exhibition by Jonathan Sills (MSc student), Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, UK.
• Home Computer Hall of Fame.
• JavaSlide: the WWW's very first Java Slide Rule.
• Mechanical Calculating Machines by Erez Kaplan, who collects such machines. Includes a chronological description, photographs, etc.
• Mind Machine Web Museum, a virtual computer history gallery by Hal Layer. Computers, calculators, games and artifacts.
• Museu Virtual de Informática, Portugal. (In Portuguese.)
• Obsolete Computer Museum. Don't throw away your old computer until you have taken a photograph of it for this online museum.
• Old-computers.com. A comprehensive online collection of 926+ old computers.
• The Online Software Museum. See UNIX Seventh Edition on a PDP-11/70 with a facility to boot UNIX online!
• The Retrocomputing Museum by Eric Raymond and John Cowan. Dedicated to programming languages, machine emulators, computer games, etc. Includes documentation and example programs.
• The Software Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Early disk software directory listings.
• Spreadpoint Virtual Museum of Computer Arts and Spreadpoint Demos Museum. Commodore Amiga computer demonstrations, etc.
• The System Source Computer Museum. Collection of personal computing devices and simulation programs.
• TI-99/4A Home Computer Page.
• Toggle Software Mouse Museum by Kevin Morton.
• The Virtual Altair Museum.
• The Virtual Museum of Manchester Computing, University of Manchester, UK. Includes a (photographic) machine hall (featuring the Manchester Mark 1) and an excellent online library presenting many historic publications (e.g., Electronic Digital Computers, a letter to Nature, September 1948). See also the 50th Anniversary of the First Stored-Program Computer.
• Women and Computer Science.

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Personal collections

• Aaron's Virtual Computer Museum by Aaron Bond. Microcomputer collection, etc., with photographs.
• Belgian Web Microcomputer Museum by Lucien Stevens, Belgium. (In English and Dutch.) See collection including many external links and also other microcomputer collectors.
• Bolo's Computer Museum, Lausanne, Switzerland. Includes links to other computer museums on the Web.
• Carl Friend's Minicomputer Museum. Personal collection of mainly 16-bit minicomputers, especially Data General and Digital.
• The Computer Collection by Jay Jaeger. Virtual tour of personal computer collection including IBM, DEC (PDP), DG, HP, microcomputers, etc.
• Computer Collection by Paul Pierce. Presents a personal collection of historical computer equipment, including mainframes and minicomputers (especially the PDP-8 family).
• DECadence, a collection of Digital equipment by Varga Ákos Endre, Hungary. See also PDP-11 history page and the KFKI TPA series, Hungarian DEC clone computers.
• HCM: The Home Computer Museum, Germany. Includes eastern European home computers.
• John's Computer Collection. Mini and micro-computers.
• Jonathan Marsters' Computers. Various microcomputers.
• Kevan's Computer Bits... by Kevan Heydon. An excellent well-documented personal collection, including computers, calculators, games and peripherals, mostly with photographs. See also other collectors.
• Mike's Computer Museum by Michael Walder, UK. PCs and non-PCs. See also other computer collections.
• Museum of Soviet Calculators by Andrew Davie, Sydney, Australia.
• Obsolete Computer Museum by Tom Carlson, Williamsburg, Virginia, USA.
• The Old Calculators Web Museum by Rick Bensene, USA. See collection and other calculator sites.
• The Old Computer Hut by Tony Audsley, UK. Well-presented personal collection of PDP8s, peripherals and some micro-computers.
• Personal Histories of the Desktop User Interface by Bruce Damer, USA. Xerox Alto, Star 8010 System and Elixir Desktop.
• Sprog's Computer Closet by Will Williams, UK. A collection of early home computers.
• Sinclair MicroComputer Museum by Majik.
• Tom's Classic Computers by Tom Copper, Roxboro, North Carolina, USA. A large collection of home computers. See computer links.
• Uncle Roger's Classic Computers by Roger Louis Sinasohn, San Francisco, California, USA. Alphabetic listing of mainly home computers.
• Webseen Ltd Computer Museum by John Atkinson.

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Selected newsgroups

• [news:alt.folklore.computers Computer folklore] (also available via the Web from Deja.com)
• [news:comp.sys.apple2 Apple II]
• Digital Equipment Corporation [news:*pdp* PDP series]:
  • [news:alt.sys.pdp8 PDP8]
  • [news:alt.sys.pdp10 PDP10]
  • [news:alt.sys.pdp11 PDP11] (see also [news:vmsnet.pdp-11 here])
• [news:alt.sys.perq ICL PERQ]
• [news:comp.sys.sinclair Sinclair]

See also:

• History of computing in the UK mailing list.
• Newsgroup articles on computer history, computing history and the history of computing from Google Groups.

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Computer simulators

• DEC PDP simulator sources/documentation and software by Bob Supnik. See Preserving Computing's Past: Restoration and Simulation by Maxwell M. Burnet and Robert M. Supnik.
• Erstz-11 PDP-11 emulator for MS-DOS PCs. Free demo version available for unlimited personal/hobby use. See online RSX11M+ operating system demo.
• Emulation Software R&D WWW Page. Information on CPU and OS (Operating System) emulators.
• Emulators from The Retrocomputing Museum.
• Simulators of historic machines in the CCS Archive at Manchester, including EDSAC, Pegasus, SSEM and Stantec-ZEBRA. See overview.
• Altair and IMSAI emulators (for PC/Windows) by Michael Hyman.
• Amiga Emulator. UAE Commodore Amiga software emulation.
• BESM-6 Emulator News. Soviet mainframe computer.
• CSIRAC graphical online simulator written in Java, the first stored-memory electronic computer in Australia.
• EDSAC Simulator (for PC and Macintosh) by Martin Campbell-Kelly. See also Group Echo and Group India EDSAC Java applet simulators produced by students at Cambridge for the 50th EDSAC anniversary in 1999.
• RSTS/E operating system simulator for PDP-11s from Project Delta.
• Zuse's Z3 Computer simulation (in German, online using Java). Off-line version also available.
• Another Z3 Computer simulation.

See also:

• JFraCE, a Java Framework for Computer Emulation for simulating old computers.
• Z80 CP/M microcomputer example applet.
• Deju Vu Browser Emulators. All your favorite old web browsers!

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The future

This section includes information on the future of computing and networking.

• In the future, charging for services with become routine on the network. The NetBill Electronic Commerce Project at Carnegie-Mellon University includes links to many experiments in the area. See also BankNet Electronic Banking Service.
• Increasingly interactive Web pages will become available. To facilitate this, Java support has been introduced into WWW browsers like netscape. For an excellent example, see the NPAC Visible Human Viewer. This allows user selectable image slices of a human body.
• The world's smallest abacus uses individual molecules.
• Gigabit Ethernet networking.

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Other links

• Computers and Internet: History list including other museums from Yahoo.
• ETC Web Museum, including a VR Hall.
• Vintage computers for sale from eBay.

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References

This virtual museum is mentioned in the following locations:

• IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 18(1):65, Spring 1996. Also 18(4):67, October-December 1996.
• Reviewed by Lycos as a top 5% Web site.
• Recommended by the Discovery Channel in A History of the Internet, 1995.
• Planet Science Site of the Day, 21 October 1996.
• Best Site Award from Bookmark Central, January 1998.
• Reviewed by Science NetLinks, May 1998.
• 5 star site under Computing Milieux from Anbar Electronic Intelligence, January 1999.
• Entry in Stumbleupon.
• Site of the Day in RedOrbit.

See also Computer History and Museums links from the Google Directory.

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This virtual museum service is brought to you by Jonathan Bowen as part of the Virtual Library museums pages (VLmp), supported by ICOM.

Last updated 18 September 2015.

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