Tag Archives: Living Computers Museum

Back in the U.S.

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If you sense a dearth of recent posts, you’re right. February and March have been insanely busy, including two long trips. The first trip took us to Seattle to see our grandson who grows by leaps and bounds every day. The second trip was to South Africa where we married off our nephew and welcomed a wonderful South African lass into our extended family.

Naturally, computer science and history always lurk in the background, occasionally coming center stage. In February, I completed a second donation to Living Computers in Seattle. I donated two working Atari computers (a 400 and an 800XL) to their collection. Everything went — peripherals, joysticks, touch pad, and software. I played a few rounds of Missile Command, etc. before sending off the entire lot. I can’t believe that I spent hours (days!) playing F-15 Strike Eagle with its cheesy graphics. 🙂 If you want to play old Atari machines and much more, please visit. You’ll have a good time!

Right on the heels of the donation, we stopped into Living Computers for a visit. We had a fun chat with Aaron Alcorn who is the Museum’s curator. He let us in about some of the Musuem’s plans as well as swapping photos of our kids (and grandkid). We saw our donated — now theirs — Apple Performa 6400 VEE in the second floor workshop/open storage. The Museum is planning a major exhibit for that space. (Restoration of an historically important mainframe. Stay tuned.)

After a few brief weeks at home, we took off for South Africa via London. Our original itinerary allowed for a day trip to Bletchley Park and the The National Museum of Computing. Unfortunately, the plan was dashed by the weather. A nor’easter hit Boston on the departure date and we had to shorten our stay in London to an over-nighter.

Nonetheless, we walked over to London’s Science Museum on Exhibition Road, bagging yet another science museum in yet another city. (We also wanted to see how many holes it took to fill the Albert Hall.) The mathematics and information age exhibits helped to make up for losing Bletchley Park.

The Science Museum has an excellent collection of mechanical computing devices including Charles Babbage’s analytical engine (trial model, 1871). It took a little digging to find any reference to Lady Ada Lovelace whose contributions, I dare say, were longer-lasting than Babbage’s. Mechanical computing engines precede electronic computing, using physical machines (or even water flow!) to model other real-world phenomena by mathematical analogy. These devices, including so-called analog computers, filled the need for high(er) speed computation before digital computing really took wing. (By the way, electronic analog computing seems underrepresented at both the Science Museum and Living Computers. Just sayin’.)

My photography skills and the iPod camera were not up to snuff. I had hoped to include many images here. However, we did see quite a number of historically significant machines: Hollerith card sorter, EDSAC-1, Pilot ACE, LEO II, Besem-6, Newton Clamshell, Xerox PARC Alto, and early PDP-8 among the finds. A number of machines/artifacts are on loan from the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. (Not far away from where I once lived, BTW.)

Seeing the PDP-8 in a glass case at the Science Museum, really made me “get” the concept behind Living Computers. Here was a poor old machine trapped in a glass cage. At Living Computers, you can use a PDP-8! This isn’t meant to be a slam on the Science Museum because preservation of early computing artifacts is incredibly important, especially in a society and culture which is all too willing to throw away the last generation of shiny thing. It does highlight the unique aspect and mission of Living Computers: Museum + Labs. Please join and visit.

Copyright © 2018 Paul J. Drongowski

Livings computers indeed

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Just back from a long trip to Seattle. I had a great time seeing family, friends, old and new. Of course, there are always a few nerd-stops along the way.

I had the pleasure of visiting the Living Computers: Museum + Labs on the south side of Seattle. Just take the Sound Transit Link light rail system to the SODO station, walk a few blocks west along South Lander Street to First Avenue, and walk a few blocks north from there.

Seattle area public transportation is excellent. Be sure to pick up an ORCA transit card. Senior citizens can ride pretty much anywhere for $1!

Living Computers is both a hand-on museum and educational lab space. It’s another Paul Allen venture like the Museum of Pop Culture (once known as “EMP,” now “MoPOP”). The goal is hands-on experience with current and vintage computing technology, not static displays.

The first floor exhibit space is relatively new — about one year old. (The museum itself is about five years old.) The space is open and very nicely appointed. The first floor has many interesting interactive exhibits including self-driving car, telepresence robot, programmable robots, neural nets, Cubelets, and more. (Cubelets are super high tech processing blocks that plug together.) The staff is very friendly and knowledgeable.

The first floor also has teaching labs which are nicely equipped. The museum sponsors one day courses and events to help people get started and to work on projects of their own. (Watch out for code.org events, too.) The staff hold open office hours on Thursday afternoons between 3PM and 5PM. I dropped in during office hours and had a fun chat with the teaching staff. The museum has established and is building a close relationship with local school systems and educators.

On to the second floor! Half-way up the stairs, is a mini Internet of Things (IoT) lab where you can quickly assemble a demo IoT system. I put together an Alexa-controlled buzzer. The hardware consisted of an Amazon Echo Dot, a handful of littleBits modules, and a Samsung tablet running the littleBits app. Once assembled, Alexa starts a ping-pong of network messages that eventually turn on the buzzer. Cute.

The second floor began life as Paul Allen’s computer collection. Paul Allen is a preservationist who wants people to experience vintage computing, not just look at old stuff. The second floor is filled with vintage personal computers, mini computers and mainframes. (Please see the museum site for a detailed list.) The PDP-10s, -20s, -8s, 029 card punch, etc. are old familiar tech from my youth. There were a few pieces that I had not touched before such as a PLATO terminal. The micros and minis are in a large exhibit space while the mainframes are running in an air conditioned cold room. You can get an on-line account to the mainframes, BTW.

It was a kick to see SYSTAT, again. Ah, many cold nights spent in the machine room at C-MU as a computer operator. Now there’s an obsolete job title for you! I got in a few rounds of Missile Command on the Atari 400, inspiring me to drag out my old 400 at home.

I would have pictures of the museum and labs, except it was raining cats and dogs when I visited and I didn’t want to drag my iPad into the weather. My day pack is not exactly waterproof. (Ironically, I have since trashed by 1st gen iPod by throwing it into the washing machine with the laundry.)

After taking it easy for a day, I dropped into the 2017 ACM SIGCSE computer science education conference at the Seattle Convention Center. The highlight of my day was Erik Brunvand’s presentation about his course Making Noise: Sound Art and Digital Media.

Erik is an old friend of ours from grad school days at the University of Utah, where he is now a professor of computer science. Erik’s course is like a trip through my own psyche and his lab is indistinguishable from our dining room which serves as my electronics shop. He has quite successfully melded electronic music, computing and electronics into a one semester, project-oriented course. Students slam into art/music and technology from all directions. Students get a taste of everything including circuit bending. Hats off to Erik!