The Virtual Museum of Computing   Virtual Library Museums Computing Pioneers![[Babbage Difference Engine]](http://vmoc.museophile.org/photo.gif) The Virtual Museum of Computing(VMoC)Now accessible as:vmoc.museophile.orgDavid Wheeler(1927-2004),inventor of the closed subroutine, died on 13 December 2004.Program Verification and Semantics: Further Work,seminar,Science Museum, London,2 December 2004.This virtual museum includes an eclecticcollection ofWorld Wide Web (WWW)hyperlinks connected with the history of computingand on-line computer-based exhibits available both locally andaround the world.It was founded on 1 June 1995,so is an example of an "old" virtual museum itself.![[VISITOR NUMBER]](http://www.cs.reading.ac.uk/cgi/archive/nph-count?width=5&link=/vlmp/<b>computing</b>.html) This museum opened on1st June 1995.The museum receives about 200 visitors each day.Please contactJonathan Bowenif you know of relevant on-line information not included here.Mirror sites are available inSweden andUSA courtesy ofICOM, and alsoelsewhere, including theUK, if you experience poor access speed.Automatic redirection to a mirror site is available.Selected recent additions and eventsEdgar (Ted) Codd (1923-2003), inventor of therelational database model,died on 18 April 2003.Roger Needham (1935-2003) died on 28 February 2003.Allan Bromley, who researchedCharles Babbage's drawings of theDifference Engine extensively in theLondonScience Museum archive, died in August 2002.This work led to the building of theDifference Engine No. 2,now on display in theScience Museum Computing Gallery in London.Edsger Wybe Dijkstra (1930-2002), died on6 August 2002.Seeobituary.Both co-inventors ofSimula 67, the firstobject-oriented programming language, died in 2002.Ole-Johan Dahl (1931-2002)died on29 June 2002.Kristen Nygaard (1926-2002)died on10 August 2002.Business Computing: the Second 50 Years, The Guildhall, London, UK,5-6 November 2001.A conference celebrating the 50th anniversary ofLEO, the world's first business computer.Seeprogramme.Program Verification and Semantics: The Early Work,seminar,Science Museum, London,5 June 2001.Tom Kilburn (1921-2001), Manchester University, UK,died on17 January 2001. US company founded by IBM System/360 architect Gene Amdahl, now owned by Fujitsu.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: 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. Includesthe founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard.IBM:Archives and About IBM, USA.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.More on-line history from other computer companies not mentionedabove would be especially welcome for inclusion.History of computing organizationsAustralian Computer Museum Society Inc (ACMS).Charles Babbage Institute (CBI),Center for the History of Information Processing,University of Minnesota, USA.Dedicated to the preservation of thehistory of information processing.Seeexhibits andIterations:An Interdisciplinary Journal of Software History,launched in 2001.Computer Conservation Society, UK.A co-operative venture between theBritish Computer Society (BCS) and theScience Museum in London.SeeOur Computer Heritage, a three-year project. 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 plannedvirtual computer history museum includinga chronology of computer history from 3000BC and avirtual tour of microcomputer history.The History Of Computing Project Foundation (THOCP),The Netherlands. Founded April 2000.See museums you should visit.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.See also:Association for History and Computing (AHC) which holdsannual conferences and published the History and Computing journal.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.General historical information50 years of the transistor (1997).AlanTuring.net, the Turing Archive for the History of Computing. See Alan Turing's Automatic Computing Engine (ACE).BCPL, a programming language designed by Martin Richards in 1966. ABrief History of the Internet by Barry Leiner, Vinton Cerf et al. from the Internet Society. ABrief History of the Internet by Bruce Sterling. ABrief 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. ABrief 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. TheComputer Archive - the Weinreb collection.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: From the Past to the Present, a lecture presented by Michelle A. Hoyle.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). TheEarly 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. TheElectronic Labyrinth, a study of hypertext technology, including a time line. AnEmbedded History - Part 2 and Part 3 from Embedded Update electronic newsletter on embedded systems.English Electric DEUCE Computer by John Barrett. TheFirst 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.Greatest moments of computer history are speeding up. Omega Point expected around 2040!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. TheHidden History of the Internet, Pretext Magazine, March 1998.History of Computing Information includingthe 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 and theon Wikipedia.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) andJ.A.N. Lee'slooking.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. TheHistory 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 alsoresearch outline.History of Computing list of publicationsand the originalNATO Software Engineering Conference reports byProf. Brian Randell. TheHistory of Computing, an index of on-line resources by John A. N. Lee, Editor-in-Chief of theIEEE Annals of the History of Computing. See The Machine That Changed the World.History of Computinglinks by Horst Zuse, son of the computer pioneer Konrad Zuse.History of Emoticons from the Official Smiley Dictionary.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 ofLife on the Internet by PBS, USA. TheHistory of the Internet by Dave Kristula. TheHistory of Modern Computers and their Inventors by Mary Bellis.History of Parallel Computing. Chronology of major developments in parallel computing and supercomputing.History of the Perl programming langugae. TheHistory of Project Delta, high school computing in the 1960's and 70's, Delaware, USA.Hobbes' Internet Timeline- important Internet dates and statistics.IBM 1130 Computing System. See emulator.IBM 1620 history site.IEEE Computer Society: A History, USA. Publishers of theIEEE 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.i-MB: The History of Computing, 1937-2000 by period/year. The main events in the history of computing. (More information for recent years.) TheInternet Archive. See the WWW History Project. Konrad Zuse Internet Archive.(Alsoin German.)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.LivingInternet.com, a comprehensive online reference source about the Internet.LLNL Computing: War Stories and AnecdotesincludingPicture History of LLNL Computers from theLawrence 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.The Modern History of Computing, Stanford University, USA.Multics. An influential operating system, begun in 1965 and still in use today. See history. Also available in the UK.Multi-University/Research Laboratory talks at theComputer Museum:Dawn of Electronic Computing, 1935-1945,Dr. Gordon Bell(1/1/1996)The First Computers, 1946-1950,Dr. Gordon Bell(1/1/1996)Stretch: The Technological Link Between Yesterday and Tomorrow,Dr. Gordon Bell(1/1/1996)Design and Use of Colossus,Dr. Tom Flowers(10/15/1981)Design and Use of Colossus (Part 2),Dr. Tom Flowers(10/15/1981)Past Notable Women of Computing including Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852).History of Computing and the Internet including the History of Women in Computing by Janet Abbate.Pegasus, a vintage British computer, first produced by Ferranti Ltd in 1956. Information by Prof. Simon Lavington. ThePresent at the Creation of the ARPAnet, the precursor of the Internet (1969).Programming in C: History. AShort 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.UNIVAC® Memories - history of UNIVAC 1100 series mainframes.Untangling the Web including a Timeline of Hypertext (3000BC-1996AD) by David Aden and John Stanard.Usenet history project from ECHO: Exploring and Collecting History Online. See also some history and 20 Year Usenet Archive from Google Groups.Vintage Calculators from X-Number World of Calculators. TheWebstory.com. UK BBC/Open University TV series, 1998.Why Computers are Computers, a book by David Rutland, including excerpts and some answers to FAQs. TheWorld Wide Web History Project by the Internet Archive.WWW Hot Topics: Unix 25th Anniversary in 1994.Computer-related museumsAmerican Computer Museum, Bozeman, Montana, USA.American University Computing History Museum, Washington DC, USA.Bletchley Park Trust, near Milton Keynes, UK. "Britain's Best Kept Secret." See Computer Museum. See also Codes and Ciphers in the Second World War by Tony Saleand theBritish Bombe rebuild project.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. TheComputer History Museum, Moffett Field, California, USA. TheComputer Museum, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.Musée d'Histoire Informatique (Computer History Museum). A virtual museum on personal computers from 1978 onwards, by Philippe Dubois. See also the Pong story on the first video game.(In French.)Museu Virtual da Informática, Portugal. A virtual museum including a number of computers such as the ENIAC.(Mostly in Portuguese.)Museum of Computer Technology, Denver, Colorado, USA.Museum of HP Calculators (MoHPC). Learn about reverse Polish notation!Museum of Computing, Swindon, UK.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.)National Cryptologic Museum, National Security Agency, Maryland, USA. See tour of exhibits.National Museum of Computing Instruments, Pisa, Italy.Includes QuickTime VR plugin movies.(In Italian.)National Museum of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Brasília, Brazil.Personal Computer Museum, Stenungsund, Sweden. In the Guinness Book of Records because of its collection of 250 different personal computers.Rhode Island Computer Museum, USA. TheScience Museum, London, UK. SeeComputing 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.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.Tech Museum of Innovation, San Jose, California, USA. Includes amicroelectronics exhibit.Telemuseum, Sweden. History of telecommunications. TheTopeka Computing Museum, Kansas, USA.University of California at Davis Computer Science Museum, USA. Includes atimeline of computer history. Vitrinemuseum, Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands.(In Dutch.)York University Computer Museum, Toronto, Canada.See also:Computer museumslisted byYahoo.On-line exhibits and informationThe following are virtual museums or exhibitions: TheApple Museum. TheApple / Macintosh Museum. TheAtari Exhibit.Atari History Museum.BESM-6 Nostalgia Page. Soviet mainframe computer.Compukit UK101. Early UK microcomputer kit.Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-8 index.Digital Mona Lisa, 1965.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 Ukrainefrom ICFCST. See the early BESM, MESM and SESMcomputers.(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.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.Mind Machine Web Museum, a virtual computer history gallery by Hal Layer. Computers, calculators, games and artifacts.Museu Virtual de Informática, Portugal.(In Portuguese.)Obsolete Computer Museum. Don't throw away your old computer until you have taken a photograph of it for this on-line museum.Old-computers.com. A comprehensive online collection of 926+ old computers. TheOnline Software Museum. See UNIX Seventh Edition on a PDP-11/70 with a facility to boot UNIX online! TheRetrocomputing Museum by Eric Raymond and John Cowan. Dedicated to programming languages, machine emulators, computer games, etc. Includes documentation and example programs. TheSoftware Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Early disk software directory listings.Spreadpoint Virtual Museum of Computer Arts and Spreadpoint Demos Museum. Commodore Amiga computer demonstrations, etc. TheSystem Source Computer Museum. Collection of personal computing devices and simulation programs.TI-99/4A Home Computer Page.Toggle Software Mouse Museum by Kevin Morton. TheVirtual Altair Museum. TheVirtual 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.Personal collectionsAaron'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.The Computer Collection 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.HCM: The Home Computer Museum, Germany. Includes eastern European home 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.Obsolete Computer Museum by Tom Carlson, Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. TheOld Calculators Web Museum by Rick Bensene, USA. See collection and other calculator sites. TheOld Computer Hut by Tony Audsley, UK. Well-presented personal collection of PDP8s, peripherals and some micro-computers.Personal Histories of the Desktop User Interface by Bruce Damer, USA. Xerox Alto, Star 8010 System and Elixir Desktop.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.Webseen Ltd Computer Museum by John Atkinson.Selected newsgroupsComputer folklore(alsoavailable via the WebfromDeja.com)Apple IIDigital Equipment CorporationPDP series:PDP8PDP10PDP11(see also here)ICL PERQSinclairSee also:History of computing in the UK mailing list.Newsgroup articles oncomputer history,computing history and thehistory of computingfromGoogle Groups.Computer simulatorsDEC PDPsimulator sources/documentation andsoftware byBob Supnik.SeePreserving Computing's Past: Restoration and Simulationby 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 theCCS Archive at Manchester, including EDSAC, Pegasus, SSEM and Stantec-ZEBRA. See overview.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. AnotherZ3 Computer simulation.See also:JFraCE, a Java Framework for Computer Emulationfor simulating old computers.Z80 CP/M microcomputer example applet.Deju Vu Browser Emulators. All your favorite old web browsers!The futureThis section includes information on the future of computingand networking.In the future, charging for services with become routine on thenetwork. TheNetBill Electronic Commerce Project atCarnegie-Mellon Universityincludes links to many experiments in the area.See alsoBankNet Electronic Banking Service.Increasingly interactive Web pages will become available.To facilitate this,Java supporthas been introduced into WWW browsers likenetscape.For an excellent example, see theNPAC Visible Human Viewer. This allows user selectable imageslices of a human body.The world's smallest abacus uses individual molecules.Gigabit Ethernet networking.Other linksComputers and Internet: History listincluding othermuseumsfromYahoo.ETC Web Museum, including aVR Hall.Vintage computers for sale fromeBay.ReferencesThis virtual museum is mentioned in the following locations:IEEE Annals of the History of Computing,18(1):65, Spring 1996.Also18(4):67, October-December 1996.Reviewed byLycosas a top 5% Web site.Recommended by theDiscovery Channel inA History of the Internet, 1995.Planet Science Site of the Day, 21 October 1996.Best Site Award fromBookmark Central, January 1998.ReviewedbyScience NetLinks, May 1998.5 star site under Computing MilieuxfromAnbar Electronic Intelligence, January 1999.Entry in Stumbleupon.Site of the Day inRedOrbit.See alsoComputer History andMuseums links from theGoogle Directory.This virtual museum service is brought to you byJonathan Bowenas part of theVirtual Library museums pages (VLmp), supported byICOM.Last updated28 September 2008. |
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