The American Computer Museum is a museum of the history of computing located in Bozeman, Montana, USA. It was founded in May 1990 by Barbara and George Keremedjiev as a non-profit organization. The museum was originally intended to have been located in Princeton, New Jersey, but the location was changed when the founders moved to Bozeman. It is likely the oldest extant museum dedicated to the history of computers in the world. The Computer Museum in Boston opened first, but it closed in 1999.
The museum's mission is:
"To collect, preserve, interpret, and display the
artifacts and history of the information age."
Awards
The American Computer Museum won the Dibner Award for
Excellence in Exhibits in 1994.
The American Computer Museum presents (in association
with the Computer Science Department of Montana State University)
the George R. Stibitz Computer & Communications Pioneer Awards,
named for George R. Stibitz, who first used relays for computation
in 1937.
- Arthur Burks, Chuan Chu, Jack Kilby, Jerry Merryman, James Van
Tassel, Maury Irvine, Eldon Hall, Ted Hoff, Federico Faggin
- Ed Roberts, Doug Engelbart
- James Harris, Vinton G. Cerf, Robert E. Kahn
- Steve Wozniak, Tim Berners-Lee, Ray Tomlinson
- Ted Hoff, Federico Faggin and Stan Mazor (together)
- Ralph Baer, Martin Cooper, Leroy Hood, Klein Gilhousen, James
Russell, Jon Titus
- <none awarded>
- <none awarded>
- Ross Perot, Paul Baran, John Blankenbaker
- Edward O. Wilson
Items in the museum's
collection
- Antikythera mechanism (replica), earliest known geared
mechanism, circa 100 B.C.
- Arithmometer, a mechanical calculator
- Model K computer (replica)
- Historical documents related to the history of computing such
as original copies of Newton's The Enlightenment and Locke's Humane
Understanding
- Telegraph, telephone, cash registers, and office equipment
- The IBM 1620, IBM System/360, Univac 1004, and other mainframe
hardware from the 1960s and 1970s
- Analog computers
- Minicomputers
- Signed microcomputing artifacts
- Burroughs 205 (1954)
- Personal computers
- Typewriters
- Mechanical adding machines
- Slide rules
- Hand-held mechanical calculators
- IBM 409 (relay based tabulator)
- IBM 604 (vacuum tube calculator)
- IBM 1620 (early transistor machine)
- IBM System/360 mainframe
- IBM System/3 computer
- PDP-8, PDP-8/1 (desktop minicomputers)
- Altair, IMSAI, Commodore PET, SOL, Apple II, III, Lisa, Mac,
KIM, SYM (microcomputers)
- Electromechanical/electronic calculators
- Friden, SCM, Monroe, Mathatron, Anita, Wang
(electromechanical/electronic calculators)
- Mechanical, electrical, and electronic toys (such as Consul the
Educated Monkey (1918), Pong)
- An industrial robot
- An Apollo Guidance Computer on loan from the Smithsonian
- Displays covering topics such as computer memory (for example:
Selectron Tube, core panels, delay lines, etc.), history of
electronics, etc.
- A Norden bombsight
See also
External
links
