Bozeman, Montana, a hot bed of technology. Down the street from the Museum of the Rockies is the American Computer and Robotics Museum. I asked at the welcome desk if they had my first computer on display. They did not, but they had one in the basement.
The museum is in a storefront.
The nod to robotics consisted of Robby the Robot, star of TV and movies.
This souvenir panel was woven in pure silk on a Jacquard loom at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The panel commemorates Columbus’ arrival in the West Indies on October 12, 1492.
The action of a Jacquard loom is controlled by thousands of punch cards, laced together. Each row of punched holes corresponds to a single row of a textile pattern, making it possible for complex patterns to be woven automatically.
This is an actual counter module from the ENIAC. Its purpose was to keep track of the number of repetitions (up to 9) that a given number was being transmitted. There were 20 such counters in the ENIAC..
Several previous lives ago I was forced to work briefly in UNIX with a DEC PDP computer.
Apollo Guidance computer.
Minuteman 1 Missile flight computer.
My first computer (not displayed), GENIAC.
I also had this analog computer that was really just an electronic slide rule.
GENIAC was a digital, non-electronic computer. Brass staples clamped to the bottom side of rotating fiberboard disks set the programming. The program was advanced step-by-step by turning the disk. Output was a series of lights. The box included a white paper on Boolean logic. More at Wikipedia.
They did have on display my second digital computer (TRS-80) and my third (128k Mac). I no longer have these or some of my early work computers (e.g., a Compaq 2 clone). I still have seven other computers not including Windows CE computers and a Palm. I’ll bequeath all these to the future Carl Henning Memorial Computer Museum.
