19 Sep
2006
19 Sep
'06
6:49 a.m.
At 05:34 PM 9/18/2006, Tony Duell wrote:
What you didn't include was the _excessive_ (IMHO)
admission charge
(\pounds 8.50 I think from the web site). Now I'd not mind paying if the
money was actually going to computer (or other) preservation, but I
suspect it isn't. I shall not be going.
From my perspective, "Game On" was great for my kids: They hear me talking
about old computers but haven't ever been face-to-face with a PDP
or a vector display or have much understanding that computers were
indeed only monochrome for quite a while.
It's drive-by instruction, of course, as are many museum exhibits, but it's
about exposure and planting seeds. They got to see a number of computers
and consoles and examples of old game graphics that they'd never seen.
Of course, they enjoyed playing the old and new games.
As to whether the right person got paid... my suspicions are the exact
opposite of yours. Someone must've been paid. Would any classic collector
or computer museum send their baby on an 18-month twelve-spot trip
around the world in various shipping crates without handsome compensation
and someone else paying the insurance? Who got paid to collect and
prep several dozen classic computers and game consoles? (Sellam? :-)
And perhaps you don't have recent exposure to prices at tourist spots.
This summer I visited the excellent indoor restoration of the
Apollo-era Saturn V at NASA in Florida. Full-access tour tickets for
two adults and four kids came to US $300; lunch in the mostly fast-food
cafeteria was $72.
- John