Fairchild Building

Paul E Coad <pcoad(a)crl.com> writes: OK, a little bit more of that intro I keep putting off, as lead-in to another story. I am what I guess is considered a staff member of the Computer History Association of California, with the title "Assistant Tactical Director." What this means is that I help CHAC with, well, moving stuff. There's a long story about how that came to pass which maybe I will tell some other time, but to steal a note from Uncle Roger it's cheaper than joining the Y/club/whatever. And CHAC has a computer collection and you all know what that means, right? I get to see and touch some moderately k00l iron from time to time. Anyway, CHAC keeps this stuff in storage containers that recently moved organization, the Perham Foundation, which used to operate a museum of electronics up on the Foothill College campus, because Perham provides the storage containers to CHAC. Perham also has a collection (including computers and some other nifty stuff), and if CHAC's Tactical Director who is also Keeper of the Keys or something for Perham says "Hey Frank, could you give me a hand over here?" I generally don't ask whether "here" is CHAC or Perham territory before answering. OK, that's the end of the intro and lead-in, now on with the show. A couple of months ago those of us on the CHAC staff list got an e-mail Remember Ampex up in Redwood City, CA? They're still there, only not as big, and now they are sandwiched between @Home and Excite or some other hot Internet web-crazed pre-IPO startup that I should probably pretend to be more excited about. Up 'til a couple of years ago Ampex had a museum on-site, celebrating the history of magnetic recording. It's not there anymore. I gather most of the artifacts were packed up and are in storage with no plans to display them. But the building housing the museum was scheduled to be torn down and the museum furnishings were still there. Basically, this meant the cabinets and interior walls -- the museum was built in what used to be Ampex's telephone switch room (you know, telephone switches are a lot smaller now that they aren't crossbar) and they had spent a fair bit of money and effort on hiding that with nice wood-frame walls covered in Fiberglas sound-absorptive material, that not only kept the whole place nice and quiet but formed lots of little nooks and crannies to isolate exhibits from each other and keep perusers in one place from disturbing those in others. Also they had put up a fairly nice ceiling lighting system. Perham got that stuff, but they had to dismantle it before the wrecking-ball showed up. The Tactical Director thought some CHAC folks should get a look so they could understand what was possible in the way of using space. So I went that next weekend and helped pull the walls down for transport. Well, here is where I get to twist some of y'all's guts a little. Any of you Bay Area folks ever go to the hamfest that used to be held at the Ampex cafeteria every October? The museum was about 30 feet away chances) to see something really wonderful. And now it's Too Late. And those of you wondering what happened to the Ampex 'fest now have some idea. I think this building was built in the 1950s. It had a lot of that transparent glass and white metal feel to it, at least the cafeteria area did but then that was an area for *people*. The switch room, well, as far as I can tell crossbar switches have no appreciation for any architecture but their own. ... I started writing this the other morning, but put it off because I had to go to work. Never got back to it. Today I ran into Paul and a couple of y'all (You Know Who You Are) at the Computer Recycling Center Saturday sale. When you see some folks stuffing a car with that classiccmp sort of gear you should walk up and say "I bet y'all are on the classiccmp list" and see if you get to put faces with your e-correspondents. -Frank McConnell