Computers & Business Machines - Overview
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. 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. Other artifacts range from personal computers to ENIAC, the Altair, and the Osborne 1. 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
"Computers & Business Machines - Overview" showing 3 items.
Microsoft Windows NT OS/2 Design Workbook
- Description
- This binder contains the original design specifications for OS/2 NT, an operating system designed by Microsoft that eventually became Windows NT. In the late 1980s, Microsoft's 16-bit operating system, Windows, gained popularity, prompting IBM and Microsoft to end their OS/2 development partnership. Although Windows 3.0 proved to be successful, Microsoft wished to continue developing a 32-bit operating system completely unrelated to IBM's OS/2 architecture. To head the redesign project, Microsoft hired David Cutler and others away from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Unlike Windows 3.x and its successor, Windows 95, NT's technology provided better network support, making it the preferred Windows environment for businesses. These two product lines continued development as separate entities until they were merged with the release of Windows XP in 2001.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1989
- creator
- Microsoft Corporation
- team leader
- Cutler, David N.
- maker
- Microsoft Corporation
- ID Number
- 2001.3014.01
- nonaccession number
- 2001.3014
- catalog number
- 2001.3014.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Hollerith Tabulating Machine
- Description
- During the 1880s the engineer Herman Hollerith devised a set of machines for compiling data from the United States Census. Hollerith's tabulating system included a punch for entering data about each person onto a blank card, a tabulator for reading the cards and summing up information, and a sorting box for sorting the cards for further analysis. The tabulator is shown at the center in the photograph.
- Hollerith's tabulating system won a gold medal at the 1889 World's Fair in Paris, and was used successfully the next year to count the results of the 1890 Census. His inventions formed the starting point of a company that would become IBM.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1890
- 1899
- 1889
- maker
- Hollerith, Herman
- ID Number
- MA*312895
- accession number
- 171118
- catalog number
- 312895
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Morse-Vail Telegraph Key
- Description
- Alfred Vail made this key, believed to be from the first Baltimore-Washington telegraph line, as an improvement on Samuel Morse's original transmitter. Vail helped Morse develop a practical system for sending and receiving coded electrical signals over a wire, which was successfully demonstrated in 1844.
- Morse's telegraph marked the arrival of instant long-distance communication in America. The revolutionary technology excited the public imagination, inspiring predictions that the telegraph would bring about economic prosperity, national unity, and even world peace.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1844
- used date
- 1844
- demonstrator
- Morse, Samuel Finley Breese
- Vail, Alfred
- maker
- Vail, Alfred
- Morse, Samuel Finley Breese
- ID Number
- EM*181411
- catalog number
- 181411
- accession number
- 31652
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center