http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/space-invaders-jewelry-mixes-parisian-elegance-and-retro-gaming-chic-1961068.html

Gaming

from http://xkcd.com

Gaming

... just like many others, so I don't know why I feel so tired. We started with a bit of dusting of display cases and machines, and polishing the mirror plinths which look good but show every fingermark and dust mote.

Two of the cataloguing team were in, recording, labelling, shelving. Logically we must be starting to make a dent in the backlog of items to be dealt with, but it doesn't always feel like it!

I took some photos for use on the website - a few interesting items, including my favourite, the ICL One-per-Desk. In the current climate of tweeting and skypeing, the idea of having a computer with a built-in phone in the 80's seems great. As I was using IBM mainframes at the time, it's not surprising that I've never been able to use one for real. But I can pretend!

I took a couple of turns on the desk to let the volunteers manning it take a break, which gave me a chance to sit down for a bit.

I went through one of the office machines to look for some photos, before remembering that yet again I'd left my flash drive at home. We do have CDs, but I could only find non-rewritables, and I'm too mean to put a few photos on a disc that I will then never be able to use again. We've got floppies too, but I don't have a built-in floppy drive at home. I've got a USB one somewhere ... if I can remember where. So I left the photos for this week. I'll do that next week - or is it the bank holiday? No, that's the week after.

I ran up and down stairs a few dozen times, so that must be what's tired me out, because looking at this it certainly wasn't the work!

Diary

I only installed the PersonasPlus extension from Mozilla Labs to my Firefox browser a couple of weeks ago - I like the idea of having an attractive picture in my header, even if I've chosen a theme to brighten up the browsing day. Now you can have the Museum of Computing persona in your browser too - it's been added to the public gallery today.

I really must stop browsing personas, and get some work done!

Software | Diary

Will memristors be the future of computing hardware?

http://www.pcw.co.uk/v3/news/2261030/hp-shows-successor-transistor

Guy Kewney, one of the most influential British I.T. journalists died on Thursday 8th April in the early hours of the morning at his home. Guy is probably best remembered for his column in PCW magazine from its start in 1978, but was also a TV presenter.

We were fortunate to meet Guy when he opened our 'Home Computers' exhibition in 2003 and he has been a great supporter of the museum. I visited Guy a couple of weeks ago when he donated a large number of machines that he had collected over the years to the museum. He was a great bloke and a great writer.

More information about Guy can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Kewney

Simon Webb

People | Aquisitions

Any other UK readers been watching "Museum of Life" on BBC2? Behind the scenes at the Natural History Museum in London. It's been amusing as well as interesting. Last week they had a nine-foot sturgeon donated (insert your own "smellyvision" joke here), and were shown struggling down the stairs to the labs with it. Some of our artefacts may be large, but at least they aren't slimy.

I found the section about the dodo interesting, too. We all think we know what it looked like, but over the years scientists have found out more about this symbolic bird, and the latest views of how it probably looked are quite different. I think that's one of the main advantages we have at the Museum of Computing - so many of our donations are given by people who have actually used them, and can tell us what it was like.

I do envy the storage areas these big national museums have - so much space, so many drawers, cabinets, cupboards and rooms. On the other hand, a veteran worker was remembering his first days, and how he used to set off in his lunch break to explore, always finding a new corridor or staircase. He tried relive the experience - and despite his many years of employment, still ended up somewhere completely different to his planned target. At least I can't get lost in any of our three relatively small stores!

You can catch the series on the BBC iPlayer.

Diary

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/04/05/an-interview-with-mike-davey-about-his-homemade-turing-machine/

History | Programming | Software

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/technology/8582438.stm

It will be interesting to see what they come up with.  Nintendo's previous 3D console the Virtual Boy was not a great success, but technology has come a long way since 1995..

Here is some information on the Virtual Boy

Hardware | Gaming

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8600493.stm

Hardware | History | People

OK, I know this is entirely due to tomorrow being April1st, but I just can't resist it.

http://tinyurl.com/y8b2w4d

Just sent out our Spring newsletter - if you aren't on our mailing list, you can read it online by choosing the Newsletter Archive link from the main menu.

Sign up to get an email copy using the box beneath the main menu.

Newsletter | Events | Exhibitions

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9173238/Microsoft_turns_35_Best_worst_and_most_notable_moments

History | Software

That very cool programmable vehicle from the 1980's is making a comeback...

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/31043/bigtrak-makes-toy-comeback-june

We do have an original one in the museum but only the curator is allowed to play with it 

Education | Hardware

Ada Lovelace was one of the world’s first computer programmers,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/mar/24/adalovelace-women

Find out more about Ada Lovelace here

http://www.brainpop.com/technology/computersandinternet/adalovelace/

Programming | History | People

We've been given some interesting items over the last couple of weeks, and here are a few that stand out. All these were donated by Guy Kewney, apart from the Data General One.

The Dana ran Palm OS, and was released in June 2002. Complete with touch screen, it allowed users to write directly using Graffiti as well as having a full-size keyboard. It had 16Mb storage, two expansion slots and optional wi-fi.

The next item looks like a wallet - but it unfolds into a handy keyboard. Very smart, though I haven't had a chance to see if it still works.

This smart tweed case still looks good today - almost no wear, very sturdy. Inside is a Data General One, a laptop that was comparable with desktops of the time. It ran MS-DOS, and had dual 3.5" disks, with up to 512k RAM. This was donated by Dr Geoff Hone.

Finally, this looks commonplace enough. But it has a FORTH ROM rather than a ZX81 standard ROM, as the label reveals.

We've been working on this project for about four years, plus 18 months when we were homeless and in storage. It's all about museum standards, and is managed by the MLA, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. Their website summarises it:

Accredited museums must adhere to published standards in how they care for and document their collections, how they are governed and managed, and on the information and services they offer to their users.

We have introduced documentation, policies, and working practices to the required standard, and learnt a lot about running a museum while we did it.

When I first suggested it, one of our directors asked "How much will it cost?" I gave a rather flippant reply, "Nothing but blood, sweat, toil and tears." I think I managed all four during this project ...

But now our policies are in place, we're working on cataloguing our collection, our displays are becoming both more interesting for our visitors and more enjoyable to create, our paperwork is carefully completed, and we know what to polish and what to leave alone.

The advantages are not just that will be able to apply for funding to organisations which will only deal with accredited museums, but also in knowing we're doing everything the way we should be, and that we're preserving interesting machines and technology for the future. So for us it will definitely be worth all the effort.

So now I'm off to upload some more electronic documents to our online accreditation application, and to read through the guidelines once more - just in case.

Accreditation | Diary

We had 11 pupils and two staff from one of our local schools today - St Joseph's Catholic College. We looked at some of the computing "dinosaurs" as our Curator, Simon, calls them - old valves, magnetic core memory, punched cards and paper tape, magnetic disks and tapes. Then we went down to the classroom to look at the innards of some more modern stuff to compare - hard disk drives, a PC and it's components. I also had a laptop with Ubuntu (Linux) running from LiveCD to give them a taste of an alternative to Windows.

They had great fun with the quiz, trying to find some of the more obscure items on display. Plus a good session in the Pong to Playstation exhibition, comparing the old black-and-white Pong with more recent stuff.

I think they all enjoyed themselves - I know I did!

Visitors | Schools | Education

We're "Putting the 'ting in computing!" according to one distinguished visitor.

An important visitor yesterday, if only I'd known. But he's given us a good write-up despite my ignorance. Stuart "WosBlog"  has over 40,000 video games - glad I'm not in charge of cataloguing that lot!

Visitors