Computers & Business Machines

Imagine the loss, 100 years from now, if museums hadn't begun preserving the artifacts of the computer age. The last few decades offer proof positive of why museums must collect continuously—to document technological and social transformations already underway.

The museum's collections contain mainframes, minicomputers, microcomputers, and handheld devices. Computers range from the pioneering ENIAC to microcomputers like the Altair and the Apple I. A Cray2 supercomputer is part of the collections, along with one of the towers of IBM's Deep Blue, the computer that defeated reigning champion Garry Kasparov in a chess match in 1997. Computer components and peripherals, games, software, manuals, and other documents are part of the collections. Some of the instruments of business include adding machines, calculators, typewriters, dictating machines, fax machines, cash registers, and photocopiers

Yogeeswaran Ganesan wore this ID badge at his job as an photolithography engineer for the Intel Corporation between 2011 2014.
Description
Yogeeswaran Ganesan wore this ID badge at his job as an photolithography engineer for the Intel Corporation between 2011 2014. Ganesan was born in India and came to the United States, first as a Masters student at the University of Texas, Arlington then on an F 1 student visa to participate in the nanomechanics PhD program at Rice University. After receiving his PhD for his thesis on “The Mechanical Characterization of Multi Wall Carbon Nanotubes and Related Interfaces in Nanocomposites” Intel hired him as a semiconductor research scientist.
ID Number
2014.0038.02
catalog number
2014.0038.02
accession number
2014.0038
This metal badge reads "Cruft Laboratory, Staff No. 62, Harvard University", and was donated to the Smithsonian by Grace Murray Hopper (1906–1992).
Description
This metal badge reads "Cruft Laboratory, Staff No. 62, Harvard University", and was donated to the Smithsonian by Grace Murray Hopper (1906–1992). Hopper had joined the United States Naval Reserves in December 1943 and attended the Naval Reserve Midshipman’s School for Women through June 1944. She was then posted to the U.S. Navy’s Computation project that was housed at the Cruft Laboratory.
Hopper had a PhD in mathematics (Yale 1934) and her assignment was to write computer code for the Mark I computer, formally known as the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator. Hopper continued working at the Harvard Computational Laboratory until 1949 although she, along with other women in the Naval Reserve, had been released from active duty in 1946.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1944
ID Number
1989.0093.01
accession number
1989.0093
catalog number
1989.0093.01

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