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
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IBM UK 866 Rutherford Laboratory Central Computer System
- Description
- These two blue eighty-column punch cards have four square corners (none truncated). They are job statement cards for the Rutherford Central Computer System 195. The cards have space for information about a job name, job number, user's identity code, programmer's name, and job parameters.
- Established in 1958, the Rutherford HIgh Energy Laboratory of Britain's National Institute for Research in Nuclear Science was a center for computing in Britain. It installed one IBM 360/195 mainframe computer in 1971, and a second in 1976. These computers ran until 1982.
- A mark on the cards at the top right reads: SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL. A mark on the bottom edge reads: IBM UNITED KINGDOM LIMITED. Another mark there reads: 866-23042.
- Reference:
- See www.chilton-computing.org.uk/ca/technology/s360_195/p007.htm.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1971-1982
- maker
- IBM
- ID Number
- 1996.0142.31
- catalog number
- 1996.0142.31
- accession number
- 1996.0142
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
