Washington D.C. Trip

Jason, I agree that those museums are a MUST SEE for any vintage computer enthusiast! You forgot to mention (did you miss it?) that they have the origional "Mark-8 Microcomputer" that Jon Titus built as found on the cover of Radio Electronics in 1974! It was right next to the micros and micro magazines exhibit. Jon was a guest at VCF in 1999. I reckon that the burn-in on the Xerox Alto was an early "desktop theme" or "screen saver" (did the Alto have that feature?). If I recall correctly it reminded me of cartoon-like butterflies, flowers, or a bee or something like that. There were a number of Altos placed into service at the White House for use by secretaries there, and perhaps one of those is what ended up at the nearby Smithsonian. I understand that the secretaries that got to use them, loved 'em. Its a pity that none of the computers on display at the the museum actually are working. I think that is a major flaw in their presentation.

I found the videos running as part of the Enigma exhibit and the Eniac exhibits to be particularly interesting. John Lewczyk jlewczyk(a)speakeasy.net classiccmp digest subscriber > Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 13:57:30 -0400 > From: "Jason McBrien" <jbmcb(a)hotmail.com> > Subject: Washington D.C. Trip > > Didn't get anything from anywhere on my extended Memorial Day vacation to > Washington D.C. (Mostly running through museums) But I highly reccomend it > to anyone interested in historical computing devices. The main Smithsonian > museums I went to were the American History Museum and the Air and Space > museum. Both had special exhibits on information processing, and among the > highlights are: > *snip*