A Bit of History

Being on a road trip makes me lose track of time and I find I have to ponder a bit to remember when I was where even a few days ago.....or it could be just a poor memory....

Whatever.... Last Friday, as we were escaping from San Francisco, our path in the pouring raintook us past Mountain View, CA, the home of The Computer History Museum. I'd discovered this place on-line (where else?) and had planned to visit. Y'know, the heart of Silicon Valley, my interest in computers, where else to see part of ENIAC, a neat geek thing to do....

So we found the right exit to the Museum, just off Hwy 101, and took the 5-cent tour of the place. Just walking around the displays would have been interesting, but the guided tour was quite a bit of fun. As history goes, most of this stuff is so recent as to hardly qualify in the traditional museum sense, but considering the impact these devices have had, and how quickly things have changed.... Anyhow, an interesting way to spend a couple of hours. I'd only recommend it to people with a real interest in computers and computing history. For example, I enjoyed the first display: a wall with just a collection of mostly "portable" computers, a good number of which I've owned, built or used over the years (remember the Osborne computer? the Altair? the Commodore Pet? the "Trash-80"?). If you do go, take the free guided tour - the stories make the whole experience much more worthwhile.