Virtual Library

Museums Computing

The Virtual Museum of Computing (VMoC)

Now accessible as: vmoc.i.am

You are visitor number since this museum opened on 1^st June 1995. The museum currently receives about 200 visitors each day. Please mail J.P.Bowen@reading.ac.uk if you know of relevant on-line information not included here.

Mirror sites are available in Sweden and USA courtesy of ICOM, and also elsewhere, including the UK, if you experience poor access speed. Automatic redirection to a mirror site is available.

• Local virtual exhibits
• Corporate history and overviews
• History of computing organizations
• General historical information
• Computer-related museums
• On-line exhibits and information
• Personal collections
• Selected newsgroups
• Computer simulators
• The future
• Other links

• 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.
• 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.
• Paul's Virtual Exhibition. An experimental ray-traced gallery/museum.
• Computer audio.
• A selection of organizations with WWW servers, including many major computing, electronics and telecoms corporations.
• Bob's Computer Museum - guide to a growing personal collection of mainly microcomputers by Robert Manners. (Good brief information and pictures.)
• Lionising Leo: Review of The World's First Business Computer: User-Driven Innovation, D.T. Caminer (ed.), McGraw-Hill, 1996.

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 on-line exhibit which you would like included.

The museum has no on-line 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.

• Acorn: The Company, Cambridge, UK. An early home computer manufacturer.
• Amdahl: Company History, USA.
• 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: History of AT&T research and development (see chronology and archival films incluidng early e-mail) and 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 Garage which was workshop of Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard when they started business.
• IBM: About IBM, USA. See also IBM and the Internet: an ancient history.
• 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.

• Australian Computer Museum Society (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 links to Web sites related to the history of information processing, Hollywood and computers, and photo gallery.
• Computer Conservation Society, UK. A co-operative venture between the British Computer Society (BCS) and the Science Museum in London. The CCS was constituted in September 1989 as a a BCS Specialist Group. Secretary: Tony Sale t.sale@qufaro.demon.co.uk. Publishes Computer Resurrection: The Bulletin of the Computer Conservation Society. ISSN 0958-7403. See the CCS Archive including computer simulators at Manchester.
• 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.
• 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.

• Association for History and Computing (AHC) which publishes the History and Computing journal and holds annual conferences.
• History Computerization Project of the Regional History Center, University of Southern California and the Los Angeles City Historical Society, in cooperation with the Conference of California Historical Societies.
• 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.

• 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.
• 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: 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.
• 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.
• 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. (Also in a possibly older version here.)
• 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 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 by Prof. Brian Randell.
• The History of Computing, an index of on-line 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.
• The History of Computing links by Horst Zuse, son of the computer pioneer Konrad Zuse.
• History of computing: the first 130 years from a course on Management and Social Impact of IT by John Ogden, University of Reading, UK.
• 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.
• 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 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.
• The Internet Archive. See the WWW History Project.
• 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.
• 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.
• Multics. An influential operating system, begun in 1965 and still in use today. See history. Also available in the UK.
• Past Notable Women of Computing including Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852).
• 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.
• Twenty-Five Years (1971-1996), Department of Computer Science, The University of Reading, UK.
• UNIVAC^® Memories - history of UNIVAC 1100 series mainframes.
• Untangling the Web including a Timeline of Hypertext (3000BC-1996AD) by David Aden and John Stanard.
• 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.

1. American Computer Museum, Bozeman, Montana, USA.
2. Australian Computer Museum Inc., a museum planned by the Australian Computer Museum Society.
3. Bletchley Park, near Milton Keynes, UK. "Britain's Best Kept Secret." See what you can see and do including the Germany Enigma and Lorenz Cipher machines, the Colossus Rebuild Project (with photographs).
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 Museum, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. The world's foremost museum dedicated to computers, started by Ken Olsen, ex-president of Digital Equipment Corporation. See History Center, Internet Sampler, the World Wide Web, and a walk-through computer. A History Center is to be established in Silicon Valley, California.
6. Computer Museum, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Specializes in scientific and industrial computing. Includes electronic calculators, analog computers, core memory and paper tape.
7. Computer Museum of America, Coleman College, La Mesa, San Diego, California, USA. See sample collections and The Evolution of Computing slide show.
8. The Cray Computer Museum, Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, USA. (Now dismantled.)
9. Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum, Paderborn, Germany. See computer museum. (In German.)
10. Information Highway exhibition, at the Ontario Science Centre, Toronto, Canada.
11. Information Superhighway exhibition, held in 1995 at 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 on-line exhibit. See also the recently acquired Phillips Economic Hydraulic Computer, first demonstrated at the London School of Economics in November 1949.
12. The Intel Museum, Santa Clara, California, USA. Micro-chips, from the company who manufactured the first microprocessor in 1971.
13. The Lost Museum of Sciences Computer Exhibit.
14. Microsoft Museum. (Warning: may crash Netscape browsers! ;-)
15. Mind Machine Web Museum, a virtual computer history gallery by Hal Layer. Computers, calculators, games and artifacts.
16. Musée d'Histoire Informatique. A virtual museum on personal computers from 1978 onwards, by Philippe Dubois. (In French.)
17. Museu Virtual da Informática, Portugal. A virtual museum including a number of computers such as the ENIAC. (Mostly in Portuguese.)
18. Museum of Computer Technology, Denver, Colorado, USA.
19. Museum of HP Calculators (MoHPC). Learn about reverse Polish notation!
20. Museum of the Department of Computer Science, School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. Various computer-related artifacts, both historical and modern, from the personal collection of Professor Bill Wulf. (Large images.)
21. 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.)
22. National Cryptologic Museum, National Security Agency, Maryland, USA. See tour of exhibits.
23. National Museum of Computing Instruments, Pisa, Italy. Includes QuickTime VR plugin movies. (In Italian.)
24. National Museum of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Brasília, Brazil.
25. Personal Computer Museum, Stenungsund, Sweden. In the Guinness Book of Records because of its collection of 250 different personal computers.
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. University of California at Davis Computer Science Museum. Includes a timeline of computer history.

See also:

• Museums with significant holdings of computer hardware. (Addresses only.)
• The School Museum site, including a list of virtual museums produced by schools and resources on building a virtual museum, provided by From Now On, The Educational Technology Journal. See also an article on Virtual Museums.
• Computer museums listed by Yahoo.

• The Apple Museum.
• The Apple / Macintosh Museum.
• The Atari Exhibit.
• BESM-6 Nostalgia Page. Soviet mainframe computer. Computers History and Emulation for various computer systems. Includes platforms, consoles, and CPUs.
• Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-8 index.
• 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. Includes large pictures where available.
• 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.
• Obsolete Computer Museum. Don't throw away your old computer until you have taken a photograph of it for this on-line museum.
• 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 on-line 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.

• 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.
• Collecting Old Computers 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.
• 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.
• The Old Calculators Home Page by Rick Bensene, USA. See collection and other calculator sites.
• 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.

• Computer folklore (also available via the Web from Deja News)

• Apple II
• Digital Equipment Corporation PDP series:
  • PDP8
  • PDP10
  • PDP11 (see also here)
• ICL PERQ
• Sinclair

See also:

• All computing newsgroups.
• History of computing in the UK mailing list.
• Newsgroup articles on computer history from Deja News.

• 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 on-line 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.
• Simulation programs from the System Source Computer Museum including Java Pong and IMSAI / Altair emulators (for PCs).

• 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 on-line 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.

• 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 the recent 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 now uses individual molecules (13 November 1996). See an animation.

• Gigabit Ethernet networking.

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

References

• IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 18(1):65, Spring 1996. Also 18(4):67, October-December 1996.

• Review by Lycos as a top 5% Web site.

• Recommended link by the Discovery Channel in A History of the Internet.

• Planet Science Site of the Day, 21 October 1996.

• Best Site Award from Bookmark Central, January 1998.

• Reviewed and listed by Science NetLinks, April 1998.

• 5 star site under Computing Milieux from Anbar Electronic Intelligence, January 1999.