Boston CM (was Re: Computer Museum of America ... - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

2 Feb 2002

Well, you haven't been to the Boston Computer Museum is quite some time,
for it is no more.  Several years ago the collection was shipped out to
Sunnyvale, where it is the nucleus around which The Computer History
Center is forming.

There are several private collectors in the Boston area (myself
included), but the only computer museums anywhere nearby are in Rhode
Island.  I am Vice President of the Rhode Island Computer Museum in
North Kingston, RI (see www.osfn.org/ricm), and we have a large and
expanding collection (which grew by a VAX 11/780 just this past
weekend), and a display space which we have badly outgrown - a problem
we are working mightily to solve.  In Providence, RI, is the
RetroComputing Society of Rhode Island (see www.osfn.org/rcs ), of which
I am a member.  It too is rather pressed for space, thanks to zealous
collecting.

I'd like to invite everyone on this mailing list to come visit us both.
And while I can't say that we're anywhere near as sophisticated in our
presentations as the old Boston Computer Museum, there is plenty of
stuff of interest to all.

From: Bob Shannon &lt;bshannon(a)tiac.net&gt;

...
 I've been to the Boston Computer Museum many many
times
from the late 80's on.

At one point I contacted the Curator to see if the museum would be
interested in displaying some of the restored machines that several
local collectors had at the time.

The very notion of computer restoration struck the Museum as insane, and
...
 they wanted nothing to do with such displays, nor even
hosting meetings
of collectors and restoration fans.  One person even had a PDP 10, and
really needed some space to set the thing up.  I was going to put a MIT
CADR on display, and perhaps my 1968 HP 2114, etc.  The Museums response
...
 was that unless we were crossing their palms with
money, they wanted
nothing to do with us, it was all about donations.

It was not too long after this that I began to think vintage computer
collecting was some sort of deviant behavior or something, and I became
much less active (despite having a oversized 2 car garage to fill!).

Not until many years later did I learn of the VCF events, and I joined
the list.

During that time, the PDP-10 my friend had was lost to scrappers because
...
 he had no space to store it, and many other cool
machines were lost as
well.

There have also been rumors of very nice machines being donated to the
B.C.M only to be locked away, unrestored, and worse, sold off as scrap
to feed the cash hungry so-called museum.

Basically, the B.C.M was a social club for a select crowd, and its
primary function was never to preserve and display computing history.

John Allain wrote:

  Derek Peschel wrote:
  Several years ago it was very good.  Then it
slipped. 
 Bryan Pope
  I first came to Boston.  It was only ..._okay_...

 Bob Shannon
  The Boston computer museum was a total joke.

 I went twice, perhaps 1983 and 1985.
 1985 it was rather good, with real historic interest
 shown, none of the Bozo's playground stuff that
 it apperently moved to in the early 90's.
 1983/2 was Before it officially opened, where it
 was just Gwen and Gordon Bell's corporate
 sponsored collection in Marlborough.  Highly
 recommended, though hard to get to now I'm
 afraid.
 When did you go and what was wrong?

 John A. 