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  PaulHoule
  It amazes me how difficult it is to keep computer museums alive.Like Boston used to have a great computer museum in the 1980s back when Boston had a computer industry. I guess though it is hard to keep a PDP-10 alive today and it's not impressive to kids today to play LUNAR LANDER on a VT-102.
• lisper
  It is at once obvious and hard for people to internalize that there will come a time in the future when our time will be as far in the past as ancient Rome is to us. We might not be interested in old magazines and artifacts from our grandparent's childhoods, but they will be (at least one hopes). There are so many ways that we ought to be more considerate of future generations, and this is one them. These museums are our Libraries of Alexandria.
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  plapsley
  I just came back from the The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) in the UK at Bletchley Park. It was fantastic. They have a wide variety of working systems that you can play with, from home computers to mainframes, as well as Bombes and the Colossus (used to break the Lorenz cipher), and WITCH. Very cool. https://www.tnmoc.org/Quasi-related: If you're into old telephone switching equipment (some of which is computer-based), the Connections Museum in Seattle is not to be missed.
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  0xDEAFBEAD
  I feel like there are probably a lot of users on HN who have access to old data such as old BBS archives and stuff which would be appreciated by archive.org or Archive Team.
• decide1000
  In the Netherlands there is a computer museum with a huge collection. The computers can be used by anyone. Really a great experience for kids these days and adults.https://www.homecomputermuseum.nl/en/
• sixothree
  They should make the catalog online and available so people know how they can help.
• jtrn
  Very cool and good work. Thank you!
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  k310
  Sigh, I offered cool IMSAI gear with loads of cards to a computer museum, and they preferred "autographed" stuff, "prestige" items, negating the pioneer spirit of those of us who soldered countless thousands of parts, sockets and interconnects.Dsigned by Ty Warner, of course) the experience will live with me as long as I live and can instill in younger people that pioneer spirit (perhaps with SBC's and real-world interfaces) and fun times growing up with these gizmos.I don't see them as museum pieces to be hung on a wall, and guarded. What good does that do in the tech world as opposed to the art world? I recall hearing about the greatest art theft of all time, IIRC, the one at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. [0]I previously visited that museum, at a time when passive photography was considered harmful (probably a holdover from the Salem Witchcraft Trials, and thoroughly debunked) and got a raft of shit from a curator about having evil photographic gear in my possession.Since I never knew his name I never thought to look up whether he was one of the guards bound and gagged in the robbery.More to the point, "treasures" ( and these are treasures) are for fools to hoard, and you can learn from mere observation, whereas the old gizmos are still "playable"In fact, a few frayed ribbon cables still need replacement.UNLESS WE HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO DO SO.Claude refused to.[0] https://www.fbi.gov/history/cases-and-criminals/isabella-ste...