2 Jun
1998
2 Jun
'98
3:54 p.m.
> Is it just me, or are most museums clueless when
it comes to electronic
> exhibits? I've come across a museum that refuses to complete its PDP8 as
> the 2 cards I offered them that they were missing were made a few years
> after the the machine itself. This is a machine that was in use and taken
> out of service BTW, so it's unlikely that all the cards were original.
Actually, if the curator follows all of the museum rules to the letter, I
can see why he would have refused the cards. However, having the later
cards in the empty slots poses no threat to the machine at all, and could
be replaced with proper cards without anyone noticing. Odd behavior. He
should have accepted the cards as artifacts of their own, if anything.
> Another collection I know about has managed to
misplace a PDP12, a
> PDP11/70 and all the printsets for them. Losing a board I can understand,
> but 6' racks???
That is a bit insane.
(sigh) WHAT do you do with these people???
Ignore them. Most museums today are not warehouses of artifacts. It
disappoints me greatly, seeing huge multimedia displays on something
simple like how the nose works, knowing that the space could be used to
show off some really neat stuff be they computers, stoves, knives, cars,
whatever.
It seems that TC"M" is a target of our attacks often. Do what a small
group of hackers did - create a new East Coast home for big iron, called
RCS/RI. Sure we are not big, and we do not have a nice "exhibit", nor
corporate backing, but we do have a PDP-12 _that_works_. We will turn
it on for anyone that wants to see a 25 year old computer system work. And
we will never misplace it.
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net