Museums

I agree. Last time I checked, there are around 15 "real" computer museums in America -- basically it's the CHM, and everyone else. I can't speak for the others, but we in MARCH are, as Al said, a club with a public collection. The only time we wear gloves is when cleaning artifacts covered in you-don't-want-to-know-what (our PDP-8 came from a barn, so....) Luckily, there is room for both kinds of museum. Our hobby is incredibly fortunate to have a professional organization like the CHM. I visit there every couple of years (usually when VCF West happens) and it's a highlight of my year. Where else can you see parts of machines PDP-1? (Answer: No place else.) But if you're just a family man who wants to show your kid BASIC a Commodore 64, then club-run museums are the way to go. Conversely, at CHM's Visible Storage, you can't * use * anything. I always tell our visitors that if they're seeking a professional, Smithsonian-like museum experience, then it's totally worthwhile to go visit CHM in California. Personally I love it out there. If they ask about documentation then I even tell them about Al and Bitsavers. Presumably, if Al, Dag Spicer, and the others at CHM encounter visitors who want to do more hands-on, then I assume they inform the visitors about options such as Digibarn, VCF, etc. So it works both ways. Different scales/scopes of museums cater to different audiences. What works for us in MARCH is, as hackers say, "the hands-on imperative." Of course that changes somewhat with our larger / rarer / older artifacts.