[LINK] Vintage computer museum

[r.polanskis at uws.edu.au]

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004, Daniel Rose wrote:

> Do we need a computer museum? At what point does rubbish become worthy
> of preservation?

This is an interesting question.

I collect vintage analogue synthesizers as one of my hobbies.
In their heydey, these quirky cantankerous electronic instruments were
the pinnacle of electronic achievement.   Even the Sequential Controllers
they use have more in common with an analogue computer than anything else.
Many of them are quite few in number (my OSCar is one of only 2000 in the
whole world) and as a result very rare, especially in working order.

In the 1980's, VLSI technology came onto the scene and the Digital Synthesizer
started to supplant the old analogues quite quickly, to the point where
you practically couldn't give them away.   Digital synths such as the Yamaha
DX7, for example, became the standard for music production and performance
while it's analogue cousin, the CS-80 became more or less a boat anchor.

Today, these same instruments, that were scourged as being "dinosaur"
technology are now in huge demand by collectors, for various reasons,
whether it be aesthetic, or musical or just plain perverse.

I believe the same thing can happen to computers - especially those with
very limited production runs (less than 10,000 for eg).   Perhaps not
so much at the commodity level we see today with your various Wintel
and low point Macs or various workstations, such as Sun or SGi, but certainly,
where there are systems that are hand built, or designed with specific
criteria, that makes them unique, then, most certainly these systems should
be retained as historical evidence of technical accomplishment.

It is even better if they are fully operational and have their associated
documentation and software packages.

What is missing of course is people that can fix these things, as they
are now probably getting on and we are losing the knowledge, such that
these items of interest (both synths and computers) are almost "magical"
in the things that make them work.

They may be inefficient, big and clumsy, but they are interesting.


rachel

-- 
Rachel Polanskis		Systems Admin, University of Western Sydney
V1-37, Kingswood Campus		(+61 2) 47 360 291 <r.polanskis at uws.edu.au>
        "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security,
        deserve neither liberty or security" - Benjamin Franklin, 1759