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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Slides Showing Fractals
- Description
- These twenty slides, prepared by the American mathematician John Hubbard of Cornell University, show computer-generated graphics of fractals. They were collected-for-the-museum from Hubbard on a February 28, 1985, visit to Cornell.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1985
- ID Number
- 1985.3088.03
- nonaccession number
- 1985.3088
- catalog number
- 1985.3088.03
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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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
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Documents Distributed by Grace Murray Hopper
- Description
- This group of documents and photocopies of documents was distributed by Grace Murray Hopper at a lecture to Smithsonian volunteers on March 15 1985. The dates of the materials range from 1955 until 1985. Topics include preliminary definitions for a data processing compiler, data base machines, privacy, microcomputers, and certified compilers for different computer languages
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1955-1985
- ID Number
- 1985.3088.02
- nonaccession number
- 1985.3088
- catalog number
- 1985.3088.02
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Nanoseconds Associated with Grace Hopper
- Description
- This bundle consists of about one hundred pieces of plastic-coated wire, each about 30 cm (11.8 in) long. Each piece of wire represents the distance an electrical signal travels in a nanosecond, one billionth of a second. Grace Murray Hopper (1906–1992), a mathematician who became a naval officer and computer scientist during World War II, started distributing these wire "nanoseconds" in the late 1960s in order to demonstrate how designing smaller components would produce faster computers.
- The "nanoseconds" in this bundle were among those Hopper brought with her to hand out to Smithsonian docents at a March 1985 lecture at NMAH. Later, as components shrank and computer speeds increased, Hopper used grains of pepper to represent the distance electricity traveled in a picosecond, one trillionth of a second (one thousandth of a nanosecond).
- Reference: Kathleen Broome Williams, Grace Hopper: Admiral of the Cyber Sea, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1985
- distributor
- Hopper, Grace Murray
- ID Number
- 1985.3088.01
- catalog number
- 1985.3088.01
- nonaccession number
- 1985.3088
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Wang Rule
- Description
- This two-sided WANG rule has spacing guides for horizontal and vertical measures. It was used in the 1980s by the museum’s Office of the Registrar to design typed forms (not computer printouts).
- The front of the rule has four different horizontal scale divisions. Along the top edge are a 14 inch scale marked in 16ths and a 168 space scale marked 12 spaces to the inch. The bottom edge has a 140 space scale marked 10 spaces to the inch and a 210 space scale marked 15 spaces to the inch. The back has three vertical scale divisions. Along the top edge are a 110 space scale marked eight lines to the inch and a 350 mm scale. Along the bottom edge is an 84 space scale marked 6 lines to the inch.
- The museum acquired a WANG minicomputer system in 1982 -- a VS80 with two 75mb hard drives (each one was about the size of a modern dishwasher) and 14 workstations. The minicomputer was used for word processing, email, and data entry. This particular rule was given away with the minicomputer but not used in designing computer printouts. Instead, in the 1980s the Office of the Registrar made an effort to design forms that could be completed on a typewriter. The designs had to be precisely spaced horizontally and vertically so that each line/field would accurately line up when using typewriter tab and/or carriage return keys. This rule was used to ensure that accuracy.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1982
- ca 1980
- maker
- Wang Laboratories
- ID Number
- 2017.0318.01
- accession number
- 2017.0318
- catalog number
- 2017.0318.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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