Core Magazine October 2001 - Computer History...

A P U B L I C AT I O N O F T H E C O M P U T E R M U S E U M H I S T O R Y C E N T E RW W W. C O M P U T E R H I S T O R Y. O R G

O C T O B E R 2 0 0 1

CORE 2.3

Our vision of a computer historymuseum is taking shape. It includes 1) a permanent home with uniqueartifacts and exhibits, 2) a Cyber-Museum of virtual displays and digitalinformation, and 3) communities ofpeople across the world linked by avariety of Museum programs. Our goalis to build a single organization thatcombines these three vital resourcesinto a lasting institution.

I am happy to report that we ended thelast fiscal year in the black–a criticallyimportant accomplishment in a downeconomy–and our growth is almostdoubling every year! Congratulations toall involved for helping to create tangibleprogress out of great ideas. As you canguess, we are vigilant about theeconomy and its financial impact on usthis year, but are doing everything wecan to minimize our risks.

I’d like to welcome Lori Crawford as themost recent addition to our Board ofTrustees. Lori comes to us from InfinityCapital with a wealth (!) of non-profitexperience and will be chairing theFinance Committee.

We have also made some significantstaff changes in the last several monthsthat are very important to our future.Mike Williams, Professor Emeritus ofComputer Science at the University ofCalgary, has joined us as head curator.Known worldwide as a computerhistorian, Mike has publishedextensively, served as editor of the IEEEAnnals of the History of Computing,curated exhibits for other museums,and fallen in love with our collection andplans. I hope you have already met himand share our excitement aboutwelcoming him to the Museum. Inaddition, Dag Spicer, after a leave ofabsence, has rejoined us for severalmonths as exhibit curator to formulateplans for the permanent building.

David Miller came on board with greatenergy and experience as the vicepresident of development. He has takenthe reigns from Eleanor Dickman, whohad a wonderful year with us. BothBoard and staff are working tostrengthen and expand our alreadysuccessful development organization toinsure future growth.

Mike Walton joined us in June as thedirector of cyber exhibits. Some of youmay know Mike from his work atConXion, which hosts our web site, orhis previous volunteer work at theMuseum. The CyberMuseum team hasalready begun a series of experimentsand explorations to help formulate ourlong-term technical strategies and toadd real value to the currentorganization. This includes, among other things, experimenting with videofrom DECWORLD 2001 and looking atlong-term “cyber exhibits.”

Pam Cleveland has joined us as eventsmanager and her expertise has been soimportant with the frequent,spectacular, and unique events theMuseum is hosting.

Finally, we welcomed the arrival of threenew NASA interns in June: JenniferCheng brings experience and energy toour event planning and developmentteams, Kathy Vo Jozefowicz is definingand implementing our e-store, andRobert Yeh provides financial andadministrative support. We are veryhappy to have such professional anddedicated people working with us andhave wondered how we would havesurvived our summer of growth withouttheir help.

Our interim building is well under way. Atpress time, we are moving forward witha temporary steel structure–including22.5K square feet for the warehouse,9K square feet for exhibits/meetings,and 9.5K square feet of officespace–that we expect to complete byApril 2002. It will allow us to build ouroperation and manage a dynamiccollection process for several years. Inaddition, we intend to keep buildings

126 and 45 until they are demolishedfor the proposed NASA Research Park. I think we will all see an excitingphysical presence very soon.

Meanwhile, the architecture and exhibitdesign teams for our permanent homeare moving rapidly ahead. As ofAugust/September we are finishing the“programming” phase and will bemoving into the “schematic design”phase of the project. Please review thematerials on our website–we want yourfeedback and ideas.

Inside this issue, you’ll see more aboutour volunteers and the great role theyplay in so many ways. Our VolunteerAppreciation Day in August was only avery small token of our appreciation foreach and every one of them.

I can’t close without acknowledging thegreat programs we’ve recently had andreminding you that the 2001 FellowAwards Banquet is coming up onOctober 23rd. This year, we have puttogether an incredible program to honorFred Brooks, Jean Sammet, andMaurice Wilkes. In addition to the FellowAwards, we will update you on ourexciting progress and celebrate ourinternational outreach with a uniqueseries of events in cooperation with theoffices of the Consulate General ofSwitzerland. Artifact donations, adistinguished lecture panel, and aspecial reception will make that weekvery wonderful indeed.

Finally, we continue to need yoursupport in so many ways, but hope youare also enjoying the multitude ofexperiences through which computinghistory can be preserved. The next sixmonths are shaping up to be veryimportant, and opportunities abound toengage in the organization–just ask! Itis exciting to turn dreams into realityand to have so many people everywherebe part of it.

SHAPING UP FOR SUCCESS

JOHN C TOOLE

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & CEO

T H E C O M P U T E R M U S E U M H I S T O R Y C E N T E R

CORE 2.3October 2001A publication of The Computer Museum History Center

MISSIONT O P R E S E R V E A N D P R E S E N T F O R P O S T E R I T Y T H EA R T I F A C T S A N D S T O R I E S O F T H E I N F O R M AT I O N A G E

VISIONT O E X P L O R E T H E C O M P U T I N G R E V O L U T I O N A N D I T SI M PA C T O N T H E H U M A N E X P E R I E N C E

EXECUTIVE STAFF

John C TooleE X E C U T I V E D I R E C T O R & C E O

Karen MathewsE X E C U T I V E V I C E P R E S I D E N T

David MillerV I C E P R E S I D E N T O F D E V E L O P M E N T

Mike WilliamsH E A D C U R AT O R

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Leonard J Shustek, ChairmanV E N C R A F T, L L C

Sally M. AbelF E N W I C K & W E S T, L L P

David L AndersonS E N D M A I L

C Gordon Bell M I C R O S O F T C O R P O R AT I O N

Peggy Burke1 1 8 5 D E S I G N

Lori CrawfordI N F I N I T Y C A P I TA L L L C

Andrea Cunningham C I T I G AT E C U N N I N G H A M

Donna Dubinsky H A N D S P R I N G

David EmersonC L A R E N T C O R P O R AT I O N

Samuel Fuller A N A L O G D E V I C E S

Eric HahnI N V E N T U R E S G R O U P

Gardner C HendrieS I G M A PA R T N E R S

Peter HirshbergG L O S S . C O M

Charles H (Chuck) HouseI N T E L C O N V E R G E DC O M M U N I C AT I O N S G R O U P,D I A L O G I C D I V I S I O N

Dave House A L L E G R O N E T W O R K S

Christine HughesH I G H WAY 1

Steve KirschP R O P E L S O F T WA R E C O R P O R AT I O N

John Mashey S E N S E I PA R T N E R S L L C

Ike R NassiA L L E G I S C A P I TA L

Suhas PatilT U F A N

Bernard L Peuto C O N C O R D C O N S U LT I N G

John William Poduska SrA D VA N C E D V I S U A L S Y S T E M S

F Grant SaviersP R I VAT E I N V E S T O R

John Shoch A L L O Y V E N T U R E S

Pierluigi Zappacosta

Copyright © 2001, The Computer Museum History Center. All rightsreserved. The Museum is an independent 501 (c) (3) organization,FID# 77-0507525. PO Box 367, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.

The Computer Museum History CenterBuilding T12-AMoffett Field, CA 94035, USA+1 650 604 2579+1 650 604 2594 (fax)

WWW.COMPUTERHISTORY.ORG

The Museum seeks technical articles from our readers. Article submission guidelines can be located atwww.computerhistory.org/core, or contact Editor Karyn Wolfe at [email protected].

I N S I D E F R O N T C O V E RSHAPING UP FOR SUCCESSJohn C Toole

2NEW WAYS TO EXPLORE COMPUTING HISTORY:

PROTOTYPING THE PROCESS AT DECWORLD 2001

Karyn Wolfe

5A WALK THROUGH “VISIBLE STORAGE”Len Shustek

1 6RECENT ACQUISITIONS

1 7REPORT ON MUSEUM ACTIVITIESKaren Mathews

2 1UPCOMING EVENTSCONTACT INFORMATION

O N T H E B A C K C O V E RMYSTERY ITEMS FROM THE COLLECTION

IN THISISSUE

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BACK

C O R E 2 . 3

None of these stories are thetruth; these are all of ourrecollections after the fact.–Gordon Bell

All the stories I’m going totell you are true; some of thedetails have been revised toenhance the audienceexperience. –Joe DiNucci

In June 2001, The Computer MuseumHistory Center sponsored an unusualevent: DECWORLD 2001, a retro-spective conference focused on thestories and recollections of the peoplewho helped create and develop the now-defunct Digital Equipment Corporation(DEC). Approximately 200 peopleattended the weekend, which includedinformal get-togethers, a DEC artifactexhibit, show-and-tell, panel and openmike sessions, video presentations, aspeaker banquet, video interviews, andlots of time to talk and getreacquainted.

The Museum created DECWORLD 2001in order to gather stories andinformation that might otherwise bewidely dispersed or even lost. The eventwas very successful in helping theMuseum to fulfill its mission “topreserve and present for posterity theartifacts and stories of the informationage.” We collected hundreds of quotesand comments, received donations ofnew DEC hardware, and captured hoursof presentations, stories, andinterviews. As we synthesize these newmaterials into our archives, we arelearning how to best make them usableand available for research and displayboth in our physical Museum and in ourCyberMuseum that is underdevelopment. Our experiences withvideo, digital formatting, transcribing,web posting, interviewing, etc., are anexperiment that will inform upcomingcollection efforts.

We thought that the best way to conveythe results of our efforts was to showyou just a portion of the material thatwe collected while documenting theunique culture and technicalcontributions of Digital EquipmentCorporation. For a longer version of thisarticle, for more information about theprogram and attendees, and for picturesand detailed reports about the event,please visit our website atwww.computerhistory.org/decworld.

Gordon Bell examines an artifact at the“show and tell.”

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NEW WAYS TO EXPLORECOMPUTING HISTORY:PROTOTYPING THE PROCESS AT DECWORLD 2001

BY KARYN WOLFE

The DECWORLD 2001 experiment includedvideotaped interviews with many ex-DECemployees.

Grant Saviers sported multiple badges from hisyears at DEC.


Evening speaker Win Hindle described DEC’sinternal culture as “merit-based, yet competitive;contentious, but fair; critical and open-minded.”

Evening speaker Ed Schein asserted that DECwas “based on very strong individuals, which isthe quintessential American, individualistic,competitive company.”

“

”

“He Who Proposes, Does”Everyone was encouraged to acceptresponsibility for programs. Theexpression ‘He who proposes, does’was very common and the idea thatsomeone like myself, for instance, in1981, having been with the companyonly six to eight months, could take aproposal all the way to the Board ofDirectors was something very foreign to me. –Jeff Kalb

“Do The Right Thing” Drove theOrganizationIt seems that the most empoweringvalue of the company was to ‘Do theRight Thing.’ That gave people atremendous sense of personalresponsibility and support for the thingsthat they did. So many were able to getpositions of responsibility much greaterthan they ever would have expected to.–Ted Johnson

DEC was Training Ground for ManyEntrepreneursProbably the huge legacy of Digital wasthe incredible training ground that weprovided. A vast number of people wenton to become CEOs, to found newcompanies, to do things asentrepreneurs. I’m really proud to beassociated with those that have goneon to do great things. Periodicallysomebody will say, ‘Yeah, I was at DECand started this company…’ and theytransported the DEC environment tocreate good cultures and essentiallygreat designs. –Gordon Bell

A Company of TechiesField sales had a test for who thecustomers were. If the customercouldn’t program the machine and fix itfrom one of the handbooks, they didn’tpass the test as a customer and webypassed them. That’s the kind ofcompany it was. –Julius Marcus

Group Process Really WorksAs a young consultant, one of the mostunusual things about Ken Olsen’sapproach was that he did not set me upto make presentations or to givelectures. He said: ‘Come to themeetings and see what you can do.’What I saw was people interrupting,people shouting at each other. ‘What’sthis all about?’ I thought, and began torealize it was about finding truth. Noone person was smart enough. But,when we got into a group and debatedthe issue, we would get smart very fast.That was a very important philosophicalprinciple for how DEC worked. Thereason you don’t make arbitrarydecisions from a position of authority isbecause you’re probably not that smart.–Ed Schein

A Boundary-less OrganizationDigital was a place without laws. I readGeneral Electric’s annual reports andJack Welch talks about trying to be a‘boundary-less’ organization. Well, in avery natural way, that was Digital duringthe early days and quite far into thecompany’s history. We were boundary-less because people were empoweredto get the job done by using theresources of the company in whateverway was possible. And that meant goingdirectly—not up through the hierarchyand down again—to the place fromwhere you needed the help. And, by and large, that help was always given inthe spirit in which it was requested.–Win Hindle

I never, in my life, spent aperiod of time with so manytruly brilliant people as I didat DEC. –Jeff Kalb

DIGITAL “RULES” AND CULTURE

Attendees described the unique culture and “rules of the game” found atDEC, particularly in the early days when the company was small and literallydefining much of the market. Here are some of their thoughts.

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C O R E 2 . 3

“ ”Digital’s Role in Interactive ComputingDigital had a unique role in computerhistory. The industry was comprised ofcompanies that took punched cards,sorted them, and did a little bit ofarithmetic with them. From the verybeginning we started with computerscontrolling things. So we built interactivecomputers, which was almost beyondthe understanding of most people. Wehad this new concept—like with theSAGE system—that computers had theability to do something, to interact withsomething. It was a paradigm shift.–Stan Olsen

The Invention of the OEM and VARApproachesIn my role in commercial OEM at DEC,we revolutionized the sale ofcommercial computers into the industry.We invented the VAR [Value AddedReseller] program and we really gotminicomputers established in thecommercial marketplace in a widevariety of applications, spurring a hugegrowth within the industry. Almost allthe computer companies now use theVAR approach to selling those kind ofsystems. –Jim Willis

VMS Safe and SecureI want to draw your attention to just howgood VMS is. It’s actually the 25thanniversary of the first boot up of VMSStarlet on June 14, 1976. So VMS is25 years old, and it’s still 25 yearsahead of the SQLs and the NTs. And tothis day, if you want to make a safe website, you put it up on VMS withfreeware, and it’s so secure that no onecan hack it, and the only VMS peoplethat could hack it are too ethical to doso, thank you very much! –Max Burnet

TimesharingDigital anticipated personal computing.Even in the early days with PDP-6 andDEC-10, timesharing made it possiblefor people to do computationsindividually, in real time, and let thepace of thought control what happenedas opposed to the pace of the computerand the operations. So I think Digital’scontribution, in the large, was to enableindividual use of computing and thenthe company embodied that by allowingindividuals to do their very best. –David Rodgers

CONCLUSION

As you can hopefully see, the dayresulted in wonderful reminiscencesand rich contributions to the Museum’sarchival coffers. Thanks to all whoparticipated. Attendee and Museumvolunteer Mike Baxter made thefollowing comments a few days after the event:

I’m still in awe at what I experienced atDECWORLD 2001. It was mind-bogglingly important, a successfulexperiment, and a most matureretrospective…I was very impressed tosee mistakes discussed openly andwithout recrimination. This is reallyimportant learning, know-how that canbe reused. “Museum” does notadequately describe what The ComputerMuseum History Center has done: Theartifacts are by no means idle museumpieces, there are layers of storieshidden within them waiting to get out.

By 1980, finally people knew that “Digital” didn’tmean watches. –Grant Saviers

We hope you visitwww.computerhistory.org/decworld fora more complete picture and to discovermore anecdotes and quotes, including:

Cats in the Cabinet by Marcia Russell

How VAX Got Started by Rich Lary

The Loading Dock Problem by Len Bosack

The Story of Mullen Blue by Pat Mullen

700 Pounds of Lead by Pat Mullen

UNIX for Sale – ouch! By Bob Glorioso

The Origin of “PDP” by Stan Olsen

Problem Solving for the Imp-11 by Jim Leve

The Story of the Digital Handbook Conceptby Stan Olsen

Marketing Starts Writing Code by Bud Hyler

Giving Up “Frenchness” by Ed Schein

DEC Takes over Rhode Islandby Marcia Russell

My Job Description (memo) by Ken Olsen

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Panel Two included Grant Saviers, Dick Clayton,Julius “Mark” Marcus, Len Bosack, and Rich Larypresenting thoughts about 1970-1980, when“product lines were in full force.”

TECHNICAL CONTRIBUTIONS

In addition to the atmosphere of working at DEC, attendees expressedadmiration for the contributions they saw the company had made to thedevelopment of the computing industry… from the idea of interactivecomputing, to the concept of OEMs and VARs as channels of distribution forcomplete products, to the precocity and longevity of concepts such as VMS.


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A WALK THROUGH“VISIBLE STORAGE”BY LEN SHUSTEK

Like all serious collecting museums,The Computer Museum History Centercan only display a small part of thecollected artifacts at any one time. Inour current temporary facilities at theNASA Ames Research Center at MoffettField in Mountain View, California, wehave configured one of the warehousesinto a “Visible Storage Exhibit Area”where you can see, smell, and even(curators should stop reading here!)touch about two hundred of thethousands of items in our collection.And this is only the “iron;” we also havesoftware, documents, photos, posters,audiotapes, videos, films, t-shirts, andcoffee cups—everything you need todocument the history of a revolution,which this is.

Every Museum docent gives a differenttour, stopping at certain items, tellingunique stories—each weaving differentthreads of computing history’s story.Here is one virtual and very personaltour, and I ask forgiveness if I’veomitted any of your favorites. Every itemshown here—with the exception of the people pictured!—is currently ondisplay at The Computer MuseumHistory Center.

EARLY COMPUTING

Once upon a time, “computers” werepeople that computed, not computingmachines. Mechanical devices helpedmake the people more reliable andfaster than a reckoner who had onlypencil and paper. For instance, the1895 Swiss “Millionaire” was one of

the first affordable mass-producedmachines that could multiply and divideas well as add and subtract. About5,000 were produced, and this, one ofseveral in our collection, still works aswell as it did the day it was made.

The Comptometer was used, mostly

by businesses, only for adding andsubtracting, but trained operators couldtally a column of numbers blazingly fastbecause all the digits of a singlenumber could be pushed at the sametime. If you don’t believe this, I’ll get my mother, who was a Comptometeroperator in the early 1940s, to give youa demonstration. But mechanicalcalculators were not the genesis ofmodern electronic computers, they were instead one of many dead ends.

W W W. C O M P U T E R H I S T O R Y. O R G

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Once upon a time,“computers” were peoplethat computed, notcomputing machines.

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ANCESTRAL BEGINNINGS

One of the direct ancestors of thecomputer was the handsome Hollerithcensus machine, which was designed

to solve a new kind of problem. In1880, the U.S. census had taken sevenyears to produce 21,000 pages of data.There was a real danger that the 1890census might take more than 10 yearsto count, which would trigger aconstitutional crisis because thatdocument requires an “actualenumeration” every decade forallocating seats in the House ofRepresentatives. A young New Yorkengineer named Herman Hollerith won a three-way competition for technologyto save the day by using “punchedcards” to record and then tabulate thedata. It was a great success, and26,000 pages of data were compiled in only 21⁄2 years.

But as a business, Hollerith’s“Tabulating Machine Corporation” had a less than stellar business plan: theyhad only one product, and one majorcustomer that bought every 10 years.Hollerith gradually made the transitionto supplying general office machinesbased on the same technology, anddiversified the product line by mergingwith a computing scale company and atime clock company, calling the resultCTR (“Computing-Tabulating-Recording”)Company. Hollerith’s health was failingand he retired in 1911 with about amillion dollars, which was seriousmoney in those days.

It took a consummate salesman firedfrom National Cash Register in 1911 torename the company “IBM” in 1924and create the dominant force incomputers for many decades. Thatsalesman was T.J. Watson, and he and

his son Tom Watson, Jr. ran thecompany for an astounding 60 yearsbetween them.

IBM started before the invention of theelectronic computer. Its products were electro-mechanical machinesdesigned primarily for office automation,based on Hollerith’s punched card. Here are machines used for punching,copying, and sorting the cards.

IBM’s business model was brilliant:instead of selling machines, they leased them and so created a recurringrevenue stream. And, they sold the“razor” for your “shaver” as well: in1930 IBM sold 3 billion of thosepunched paper cards, accounting for10% of their revenue and 35% of their profit.


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…as a business, Hollerith’s “TabulatingMachine Corporation” had a less thanstellar business plan: they had only oneproduct, and one major customer thatbought every 10 years.

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The drive toward fast electroniccomputers with no moving parts wasnatural and unstoppable, but somepeople still enjoyed tinkering withhomebuilt computers made out of moreunusual technology. Here are threeexamples, constructed as early as1932, by Prof. Derrick Lehmer at theUniversity of California at Berkeley. Oneis built from bicycle chains and screws,one from industrial gears andtoothpicks, and one from 16mm filmstrips and wooden bobbins.

Lehmer’s Sieves, three very different

“computers,” solve the same problem—finding prime numbers usingthe Sieve of Erastasthones—anddramatically demonstrate that analgorithm and the device that executesit are very different indeed.

ELECTRONIC BEGINNINGS

It wasn’t until the 1940s that electronicdevices we recognize as being similar tomodern computers began to appear.Here is a small part of one of the first,the ENIAC (“Electronic NumericalIntegrator and Calculator”), designed

during WWII at the University ofPennsylvania to compute ballisticstables for the Army. UnfortunatelyENIAC, a room-sized monstrosity with18,000 vacuum tubes, was finished toolate to help with the war effort. And, itwasn’t really a computer in the modernsense, because it didn’t have a programstored in memory that could be easilychanged.

The “stored program” breakthroughoccurred June 21, 1948 at theUniversity of Manchester on a testcomputer called “The Baby” that at thetime wasn’t considered importantenough to preserve so it no longerexists. But starting in 1949 and basedon that idea, true computers as weknow them today began to appear. TheJohnniac was one of the first generation

of computers in that modern design,and the only one ever named for JohnVon Neumann, the brilliant Hungarian-born mathematician who played animportant role in the invention of themodern “stored program” computer. TheJohnniac was built by the RandCorporation of Santa Monica, California,and was an approximate copy of themachine built under Von Neumann’ssupervision at Princeton’s Institute forAdvanced Studies. It wasn’t exactly thesame, but that was ok because in thosedays the notion of computers sharingprogram “software” (a term not yetinvented) was not an issue—if you hada computer, you wrote programsspecifically for it and no other machineused them.

These new contraptions were clearlygoing to be useful for many differentthings. But in the early 1950s if youwanted a computer for, say, calculatingsome physics equations for your PhDdissertation, you had a problem.Computers had been invented, but youcouldn’t buy one. If you weredetermined enough, like Gene Amdahlat the University of Wisconsin, yousimply built one for yourself. This is hisWISC from 1952, the “Wisconsin Integrally Synchronized Computer.” In

the process Amdahl decided thatbuilding the computer was more funthan doing the physics, and he went onto design many important computersthat were manufactured first by IBM andlater by his own eponymous company.But this early handcrafted WISC, likemany of the objects in our collection, isa one-of-a-kind item. If you look closelyyou can also see that it is the only


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in those days the notion ofcomputers sharing program“software” (a term not yetinvented) was not an issue—if you had a computer, youwrote programs specificallyfor it and no other machineused them.

object in our collection that isperforated with bullet holes, apunishment many of us have wished but not dared to inflict on our owncomputers. For the real story on thebullet holes, visit the Museum and aska docent.

MEMORY MAKES IT WORK

The biggest impediment to buildingcomputers in the early 1950s was thelack of a good way to store data—whichwas now both numbers and programs.Early machines experimented with awide variety of bizarre schemes, fromvacuum tubes that conducted a currentor not, to CRT screens with spots oflight and dark, to this strange-lookingdelay line from the UNIVAC I that

stored information as sound wavestraveling through metal tubes filled withliquid mercury.

The 1953 breakthrough that causedcomputers to flourish was the magneticcore: a small ferrite doughnut that could

be magnetized either clockwise (“zero”)or counter-clockwise (“one”). An Wangat Harvard pioneered the use of core,and Jay Forrester at MIT made it

practical by inventing a matrix schemeusing two wires at right angles to readand write individual cores without havinga separate wire for each one.

Magnetic core became the dominantcomputer memory for 25 years untilsemiconductor memories were invented.Forrester, who was inducted as aMuseum Fellow in 1995, decidedshortly after his invention that all thereally interesting problems in computerhardware had been solved, and hemoved on to other fields where he madeequally brilliant and seminalcontributions.

One of the first large computers thatcore memory made possible was a hugesystem for the military with the combat-speak name of “Semi-Automatic GroundEnvironment” or SAGE. This photo

shows only a few of SAGE’s 51,000vacuum tubes, every one of which hadto be working simultaneously in orderfor the computer to work.

There were 46 SAGE computers built,one plus a second hot-standby backup

in each of 23 underground bunkerslocated in the northern U.S. andCanada. Their purpose was to processradar data and detect Russian pilotedbombers coming over the north poletoward the U.S. Despite all the tubes,these machines were incredibly reliableand were operated until the early1980s. The fact that by then Russiahad long since developed Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs)and SAGE was not fast enough to trackthem usefully didn’t put them out ofbusiness. Perhaps the Russians didn’tknow SAGE’s limitations.

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The biggest impediment tobuilding computers in theearly 1950s was the lack ofa good way to store data—which was now bothnumbers and programs.

BUILDING SUPERCOMPUTERS

Many of the artifacts in the collectiondemonstrate technological orcommercial failures, and studying theseis one of the best ways to learn fromhistory. The “STRETCH,” IBM’s attempt

in the late 1950s to build asupercomputer dramatically better thananything that had come before, was acommercial failure because it was tooexpensive and not fast enough. But itpioneered amazing technology that latersurfaced in other computers over thenext 20 years. Due to its commercialfailure project engineer Red Dunwellwas considered a persona non grata byT.J. Watson for many years, but laterwas lauded by Watson when STRETCH’snumerous innovations had becomeapparent.

Although IBM was very successful inproviding computers for the military andfor ordinary businesses, from STRETCHonward, and for the next severaldecades, it struggled with building thevery fastest scientific computers. In1965, a small company in Minnesotaintroduced the CDC 6600, which

tweaked IBM’s nose by being thefastest computer in the world for manyyears. An angry T.J. Watson blasted hisstaff with this memo: “Last week,Control Data...announced the 6600system. I understand that in thelaboratory...there are only 34 peopleincluding the janitor. Of these, 14 are

engineers and 4 are programmers.... Contrasting this modest effort with ourvast development activities, I fail tounderstand why we have lost ourindustry leadership position by lettingsomeone else offer the world’s mostpowerful computer.”

Sometimes, Mr. Watson, bigger isn’t better.

Part of CDC’s advantage over IBM wasits smallness, but part was theremarkable genius of its principaldesigner, Seymour Cray. He got his startdesigning computers for the military,like this Univac NTDS computer used on

board a battleship and built like a tank.In general, the military’s influence in theearly development of computers washuge and the industry would not havedeveloped as quickly without it.

Seymour Cray had a long and

distinguished career based onrepeatedly designing the world’s fastestcomputers until his untimely death in acar accident in 1997. This Cray-1 from

1975, sometimes called the “world’smost expensive loveseat,” is perhapsthe most famous example.

The physical design of fastsupercomputers presents two importantproblems: keeping the circuitry closetogether so that delays caused by wiringare minimized, and getting the heat outso that circuits don’t overheat. Inspeaking about this machine at thetime, Cray was as proud of the plumbingthat kept it cool as the electronics thatdid the computing, and would talk atlength about his patents for copper tubeextrusions into the aluminum coolingcolumns.

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Cray’s next machine, uncreatively calledthe “Cray-2,” solved the cooling/

plumbing problem another way: theboards themselves were swimming in anon-conducting liquid called “Fluorinert,”an artificial blood plasma that justhappens to have the right thermal,mechanical, and electrical properties.Changing out a defective board withinthe 30-minute “mean time to repair”requirement was a challenge, though,since all the Fluorinert had to first bepumped into a holding tank, the boardreplaced, and the liquid pumped back.

Other people solved the cooling problemfor supercomputers in other ways. The“ETA-10,” created by engineers who,

like Cray, had left CDC, contained circuitboards that were immersed in a vat ofliquid nitrogen.

MAKING MAINFRAMES

In the meantime, IBM was doing abooming business selling mid-sizedcomputers for both business andscientific purposes. But by the early1960s it had a looming crisis: it wasbuilding too many different kinds ofcomputers. Each used differenttechnology, software, engineers,salesmen, and support technicians. To consolidate behind a single uniformproduct line that could do both scientificand business computing at both smalland large scale, Watson put a 28-year-old untested manager by the name ofFred Brooks in charge of a “you bet yourcompany” project that would obsoletetheir entire product line. It was aremarkably bold move for a 60-year-oldprosperous company and it could havebeen a colossal disaster, but the resultwas wild success: IBM dominated themainframe computer industry for 20 years with the System/360 that was introduced in 1964.

Within the 360 family, IBM did finallymanage to build a supercomputer thatcould compete with the CDC 6600. Andthis IBM 360/91 was perhaps the

pinnacle of the “lights and switches”front console design, although even bythen most of the operation and faultdiagnosis of computers was being doneelectronically. The end of the flashinglights and whirring tape drives sincethen has made computers moreefficient but much less photogenic.

MINI COMPUTERS FOR THE MASSES

While Seymour Cray’s companies werebuilding massive supercomputers,Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) wasa pioneer in “mini-computers” for themasses. This PDP-8 from 1965 was a

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huge success; for about $17,000anyone could own a seriousprofessional computer. You could evenargue that it was the first “personal”computer, if that means a computersmall enough for one (strong) person topick up and put in his car!

By that definition, DEC had started bymaking decidedly non-personalcomputers like this PDP-1, which had

only 8K of memory, weighed a ton, andcould fit in no one’s car. But DEC’smachines were always approachableand touchable, and this one was theinspiration for one of the first computergames, SpaceWar!, which simulateddueling rockets ships on the screen ofthe circular display tube.

DEC went on to make many othermedium-sized computers. One that set astandard was the 1978 VAX, of whichwe have several in the collection. Foryears rumors were floating around thatcertain eastern European countries hadbuilt clones of U.S. computers becausethey could build the machine and thensteal the programs; software had asmuch value as hardware. After the fallof the Berlin wall and the collapse ofthe Soviet Union we were able to getthis clone of a DEC VAX, made from

U.S. and British integrated circuits andBulgarian (?) circuit boards, all runningpurloined DEC software.

The computer revolution has been aworldwide activity, and our collection isappropriately international in scope.This Z-23 medium-sized computer was

built by the German Zuse ComputerCompany in the early 1960s. Itsdesigner, Konrad Zuse, a formerlyunder-recognized genius of computerdesign, independently invented manyconcepts before WWII that weresubsequently reinvented by others indifferent countries. But he lost thatadvantage to engineers from GreatBritain and the U.S. because ofGermany’s war activities. His son, HorstZuse, a computer scientist himself, hasworked to restore his father’s properplace in history and facilitated thedonation of this machine to us.

BUT DO THEY STILL WORK?

Many people touring the Visible StorageExhibit Area ask how many of ourmachines still work. The answer,unfortunately, is “very few.” Even if wehave complete hardware anddocumentation and the necessarysoftware, it takes a huge effort torestore and keep the older machinesrunning. But it can be done, and thisIBM 1620, designed in 1959, is anexample.

A dedicated team of Museum volunteersled by the indefatigable Dave Babcockworked for over a year to get this earlytransistorized machine back in workingcondition. As part of the project, theyalso created an exquisitely detailedcycle-by-cycle simulator that runs on theweb. They collected a huge library of1620 software on original punchedcards, which were converted to modernstorage and can now run on both thereal machine and on the simulator. Inthe long term—think 100 or 500years—the only consistent way to keepthese old machines running and topreserve the accomplishments theyrepresent will be to do it in “virtualspace” through simulations.

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The end of the flashing lightsand whirring tape drivessince then has madecomputers more efficient butmuch less photogenic.

PERSONAL COMPUTING POWER

By the mid-1970s, computers becamereally personal and started showing upin homes. The do-it-yourself computer kitthat started this revolution was theAltair 8800, which appeared on the

cover of Popular Electronics in January

1975 and had thousands of propeller-head hobbyists dreaming of owning their own.

None of the companies that built “real”computers took this kind of computerseriously. But new companies started inthe most unassuming ways andsurprised the establishment. The twoscruffy-bearded Steves (Jobs andWozniak) who showed off this Apple I ata Homebrew Computer

Club meeting in 1977 were not obviouscandidates for creating Apple Computer,a hugely important computer companythat would still be an major force 25years later.

Only a few hundred of the Apple I’s werebuilt. The company’s first big successwas the Apple II, which was wildly

popular in schools and even made aforay into businesses because ofVisiCalc, the world’s first interactivespreadsheet. Apple kept moving quickly:their first big failure was the Apple III,

their first non-product was the Lisa, and

the world’s first mass-market high-resolution graphical computer was thejustifiably famous Macintosh.

Eventually large companies recognizedthat personal computers were becominga serious force, and even IBM producedone that subsequently set the standardfor 90% of the desktop computers. Inretrospect, that was a most unusualturn of events: the “open standard”computer was produced by the starchedshirts at “Big Blue” whereas the hippiesat Apple kept their design tothemselves. The interpretations andlessons of this bit of history will bedebated for years.

But the 1982 IBM PC, of which we havemany examples in the collection, wasnot IBM’s first personal computer. Backin 1975 they had produced this “IBM5100” to run the BASIC and APL

languages. The remarkable thing,besides the high price tag, was that itwas actually a shrunken mainframe on a desktop running an emulation of thebig 360 systems and their software.Fred Brooks’ idea of “one computer for everything” had perhaps gone a bittoo far.

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INNOVATION AND FIRSTS

Where were the big companies whenthe innovative products were firstcoming out of the young upstarts? Well,in some cases, they were creatinginnovations and failing to makeproducts out of them. Xerox, in theirPalo Alto Research Center (PARC),created the Alto, a high-resolution

graphic computer that was intended tobe what the Macintosh became. XeroxPARC also created the world’s firstprototype laser printer, based on a

standard office copier. But even withthat head start they did not come todominate the early laser printer market.

PARC also prototyped portablecomputers, like the NoteTaker,

which was never produced but looksremarkably similar to the later Osborne 1. How Xerox repeatedly

managed to invent the future but failedto build it has been chronicled inseveral books like the aptly titledFumbling the Future by Douglas Smithand Robert Alexander and the morerecent Dealers of Lightning by Michael Hiltzik.

One of the minefields in thetechnological history business is theelection of “firsts.” It depends onpedantically precise definitions, requiresmeticulous and detailed records, isalmost always controversial, is oftenhistorically meaningless, and engendersemotional responses that cansometimes lead to fisticuffs. But it’sfun! So in that spirit, The BostonComputer Museum, our ancestor whosecollection is the core of ours, ran acontest in 1985 to discover the realfirst personal computer. The winner, asthe “first advertised commercially-available non-kit computer under$1000,” was a computer you havenever heard of: the Kenbak-1, designed

by John V. Blankenbaker and advertisedin Scientific American in 1971. “Firsts,”when you find them, may not be whatyou expect.

The Museum’s award for the firstmicroprocessor-based computer wasgiven to an almost equally obscureFrench computer, the Micral, designedby Vietnamese immigrant Thi Truongaround an Intel 8008 and programmedby Philippe Kahn.

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The election of “firsts”depends on pedanticallyprecise definitions, requiresmeticulous and detailedrecords, is almost alwayscontroversial, is oftenhistorically meaningless,and engenders emotionalresponses that cansometimes lead tofisticuffs. But it’s fun!

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Speaking of microprocessors and firsts,what was the first microprocessor-baseddevice? It was this calculator fromBusicom, a Japanese company thathired Intel in 1971 to create the world’sfirst microprocessor, the 4004. This

prototype, from Federico Faggin’s desk,has one of the world’s first workingmicroprocessor chips plugged into it.

ALTERNATE ROUTES AND DEAD ENDS

Although the digital electronic computernow dominates, it wasn’t always clearthat binary was the best way tocompute. From the 1920s to the 1960s“analog computers” representednumbers in a much more direct waythan an abstract string of bits: a signalof 5.2 volts could be the number 5.2.You could add, subtract, multiply, anddivide at blazingly fast electronicspeeds. But the accuracy of the resultsand the complexity of the computationalsequences was limited, so stand-aloneanalog computers, like these made byEAI and Heathkit, became dinosaursthat only survive in textbooks andcomputer history museums.

The Museum collection contains manyother instructive dead-ends, althoughnot all of them were failures. The Illiac IV from 1970 was an experiment

in making one fast computer out of abunch of slower ones that all executethe same program in lock-step ondifferent data. It worked, but it turns outnot to be a great way to build fastcomputers. Note the coffee-table-sizedhard disks, that hold about as much asyesterday’s floppy disk.


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Stand-alone analog computersbecame dinosaurs that onlysurvive in textbooks andcomputer history museums.

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Some computers in the collectionalways bring a smile to visitor’s faces.This “kitchen computer” was thefantasy item in the Neiman-Marcus

catalog in 1965, and was an attempt toanswer the persistent and puzzlingquestion: Why would anyone want acomputer in their home? The standardanswer for years had been “for storingrecipes,” and this computer had a built-in chopping board to facilitate followingits recipe instructions. Of course, theinput was in binary and the output wasin octal, so the user interface leftsomething to be desired! For about$10,000, you could get the computer,an apron, a set of cookbooks, and atwo-week programming course. As ameasure of the social sensibility of thetime, the advertising tag line for thisHoneywell-built computer was “If onlyshe could cook as well as Honeywellcan compute.” We have no indicationthat even one of these wonderful homeappliances was actually sold, but manyhome computers still come with recipe software.

UBIQUITOUS NETWORKING

The most dramatic change in computingin the last five years has been theastounding growth of the Internet andthe World Wide Web. Thisinterconnection of millions of computersstarted modestly in the late 1960s by agovernment-funded project calledARPANET. This refrigerator-sizedcomputer was the “Interface MessageProcessor” (“IMP”) manufactured by

Bolt Beranek and Newman ofCambridge, Mass., as thecommunications pipe for the ARPANET,which started with only four nodes:mainframe computers at Stanford,UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, and theUniversity of Utah. Thirty years later,even cell phones can be nodes on the network.

At the dawn of the era of ubiquitousmobile computing, this virtual tourappropriately ends with an early ungainlyexample of mobile personal computing:Steve Roberts’ computerized recumbentbicycle BEHEMOTH (Big ElectronicHuman-Energized Machine ...Only TooHeavy). In the 1980s, Steve logged

about 17,000 pedal-powered mileswhile sending email from a chordedkeyboard built into the handlebars andreading responses on the heads-updisplay attached to his helmet. If itsounds like Steve was pedaling to thebeat of a different drummer, think about him in a few years when everydevice you own is seamlessly connectedto the Internet and you do email while inthe shower.

If you have enjoyed this virtual tour ofour Visible Storage Exhibit Area, Iencourage you to visit in person andsee the other 2/3 of it, which altogetheris still only 10% of our hardwarecollection. And if you think it isimportant to preserve these items andstories as a record of one of mostremarkable technological achievementsof our civilization, please support TheComputer Museum History Center.


Leonard J. Shustek is the chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Computer Museum HistoryCenter. Len Shustek’s educational background is in computer science (MS, PhD, StanfordUniversity) by way of physics (BS, MS, Polytechnic University in Brooklyn NY). After graduation hejoined the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University as an assistant professor of Computer Science.

In 1979 he co-founded Nestar Systems Inc., an early producer of networked client-servercomputer systems. In 1986 he was co-founder of Network General Corporation, a manufacturer ofnetwork analysis tools, notably “The Sniffer(tm)”. The company became Network Associates Inc.after merging with McAfee Associates and PGP. Shustek is now semi-retired and serves on theboards of several high-tech startups and three non-profit organizations.

He teaches occasionally as a consulting professor at Stanford University, and is a partner atVenCraft, a small “angel financing” venture capital fund. He is also a trustee of PolytechnicUniversity. Write to him at [email protected].

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RECENT DONATIONSTO THE COMPUTER MUSEUM HISTORY CENTER COLLECTION

Apple IIe, Amdek data display, DaisywheelPrinter, and sheet feeder (1985),X2164.2001, Gift of C. T. Kennedy

Assorted early PDAs including a Grid Pad, a Toshiba T100X, an NCR System 3130, anda GO G400 PDA with external disk drives (c. 1992), X2165.2001 - X2168.2001, Gift of Ed Devinney

IBM 1130 computer system with extensivesoftware and documentation (1964),X2180.2001, Gift of Robert Garner

Three-and-a-half linear feet of assorteddocuments, many dealing with early IBM and CDC computers, X2191.2002, Gift of Douglas Albert

"The Bus Probe" Curcuit Board (1981),X2192.2002, Gift of Peter Ingerman

Cromemco System 3, LSI InformationTerminal, Prism printer, disk drives, and a complete library of associated softwareand documentation (c. 1980s), X2217.2002, X2256.2002, X2190.2002, Gift of Peter Ingerman

Onyx C8002, Zephyr Console Terminal, and extensive documentation and operatingmanuals (c. 1981), X2218.2002, Gift of Douglas Broyles

Two "Cedar" circuit boards (c. 1995),X2219.2002, Gift of Dr. Allan Malony

IBM Selectric (1963), X2221.2002, Gift of Donald Knuth

Twelve books on programming and personalcomputing topics (c. 1982-1992),X2223.2002, Gift of Mark Possoff

Six linear feet of assorted rare publications,documents, and personal papers (c. 1950-1980s), X2224.2002, Gift of George Michael

HP65 and HP67 User's Library (c. 1975-1977), X2233.2002, Gift of George Michael

Hitachi TFT display and accessories, corememory module, and IBM data cartridges,X2235.2002, Gift of Joshua Shapiro

Olivetti PR-2300 printer (JP 101) (c. 1985),X2238.2002, Gift of Mark Possoff

Interact Model 1 Home Computer Systemwith a complete library of software anddocumentation (c. 1982), X2239.2002, Gift of Lawrence Ching

Aaron Paint System (c. 1990), X2240.2002,Gift of Harold Cohen

PT-396/AS plotter (c. 1950s), X2241.2002,Gift of Douglas Brentlinger

Assorted ephemera including UNIVAC andother early flow chart templates, corememory, UNIVAC publications, and computertextbooks (c. 1966-1970s), X2242.2002,Gift of Richard and Jean Lehman

DEC baseball cap, X2243.2002, Gift of Gordon Bell

PDP-6 backplane and a group of PDP-6system modules (c. 1963), X2244.2002, Gift of Robert Garner

PDP-10 disk (c. 1967), X2245.2002, Gift of Elizabeth Feinler

Assorted DEC t-shirts and software,X2247.2002, Gift of Pierre Hahn

"Alpha Implementations and Architecture"signed and donated by the author (1996),X2248.2002, Gift of Dileep P. Bhandarkar

AI textbook collection (c. 1980s),X2251.2002, Gift of Arthur Iadonisi

Replicas of the Genaille-Lucas Arithmetique,"Napier's Bones," Napier's Calculating Box,and Schickard's Clock, X2252.2002 -X2256.2002, Gift of Gordon Bell

VT 180 "Robin" computer system completewith disk drives and modems (1982),X2262.2002, Gift of H. Michael Boyd

RX180 AB Disk Drive (1982), X2263.2002,Gift of H. Michael Boyd

RISC II Chip (c. 1985), X2265.2002, Gift of David Patterson

Macintosh Portable Computer, Apple DesktopBus Mouse, power adapter, and case (1989),X2266.2002, Gift of Randy Katz

TI programmable 59 calculator with aPC100C printer/docking port, including cover,full program library, complete manuals, andclippings (c. 1977), X2267.2002, Gift of Bruce Watts

HP 9810A calculator (Model 10), programlibrary and associated documents,X2269.2002, Gift of Robert Schapp, Jr.

Osborne 1 portable computer, Trantorexternal hard drive, and extensive associatedOsborne software and documentation(1981), X2271.2002, Gift of Ann Hyde

Millenium Information Systems ProgrammingPanel, CPU, 2 2-Slot 8" disk drives, an Atari1200 XL, and five boxes of associatedsoftware and documentation (c. 1978-1982),X2272.2002, Gift of Harry Stewart

Four linear feet of assorted computingdocuments including networking and Stanford AI Lab documents, X2273.2002,Gift of Mark Kahrs

Metaphor digital workstation unit withinfrared keyboard, numeric keypad, specialpurpose keypad, and mouse (c. 1997),X2274.2002, Gift of Tim VanRoekel

IBM Personal System portable computer,Model 8573-401 (1991), X2276.2002, Gift of Dana Herbert

Visual Technology, Inc., Notebook portablecomputer with original instruction manual and two OS manuals, X2277.2002, Gift of Sylvio Demers

Extensive donation of Lotus software,ephemera, and publications as well asindustry literature (1980-2000),X2278.2002, Gift of the Lotus Division of IBM

Assorted UNIVAC I and UNIVAC II equipment(c. 1953-1958), X2279.2002, Gift of Mac Maginty


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C O R E 2 . 3

In July of 2001, The Computer MuseumHistory Center celebrated its secondanniversary as an independent non-profit institution, with the exciting andimportant mission to preserve andpresent early information agedevelopments. In two short years wehave tripled our staff, volunteer base,events, and annual budget. We havesignificantly increased our world-classcollection and the number of tours weoffer. All the while, we have workedbehind the scenes planning a premierMuseum building, complete withinnovative and inspiring exhibits,scheduled to open in 2005. In short, we have made amazing progress acrossall areas of the Museum. Here aresome highlights.

MAKE HISTORY ON OCTOBER 23: DON’T

MISS THE ANNUAL FELLOW AWARDS

Each year, on one brilliant evening,hundreds of industry luminaries cometogether to applaud the achievements ofthree outstanding people in thecomputer technology world. This yearthat evening is Tuesday, October 23 atthe San Jose Fairmont Hotel.

Honorees are: Frederick P. Brooks forhis contributions to computerarchitecture, operating systems, andsoftware engineering; Jean E. Sammet,for her contributions to the field ofprogramming languages and its history;and Maurice Wilkes, for his life-longcontributions to computer technology,including early machine design,microprogramming, and the Cambridgering network.

Hosts for the evening are DonnaDubinsky, Len Shustek, Suhas Patil,Jayashree Patil, Elaine Hahn, Eric Hahn,Karla House, Dave House, Angela Hey,John Mashey, and Peter Hirshberg. Themaster of ceremonies is Internetluminary and 2000 Fellow Vinton Cerf.

To further enhance the magical evening,a reception prior to the banquet andceremony will feature an impressiveexhibit of artifacts recently donated tothe Museum by various Swissindividuals and organizations, initiatedand coordinated by the Swiss Scienceand Technology Office in San Franciscoand shipped courtesy of PRS PresenceSwitzerland. A number of dignitaries andpioneers from Switzerland will be inattendance.

Don’t miss this marquis event! Call orvisit www.computerhistory.org for detailsand registration.

DECWORLD 2001

Museum-sponsored DECWORLD 2001represented another benchmark in theMuseum’s quest to gather and preservepersonal stories of the computingrevolution. Nearly 200 people from 16states and two countries—many whohad not seen each other for years—gathered to present the inside stories ofDigital Equipment Corporation, acompany whose achievements notablyinfluenced the technology boom. Twenty-seven people donated items to theMuseum's collection. Over 60 DECalumni were interviewed, recordingstories for posterity, and approximately10 hours of video recorded the entireproceedings. Museum staff is busyconverting videos, transcripts, and otherimages of the event for posting to theweb. For details, see Karyn Wolfe’sarticle in this issue and visithttp://www.computerhistory.org/decworld.

PERSONAL RETROSPECTIVES ON THE

XEROX ALTO

On June 4, Butler Lampson and ChuckThacker closed the Spring LectureProgram with an entertaining talk givento over 300 people that includedpersonal stories from time spent atXerox PARC developing the Xerox Alto.Attendance, by a show of hands at thelecture, included a high percentage of

REPORT ON MUSEUM ACTIVITIESKAREN MATHEWS

Karen Mathews is Executive VicePresident at The Computer MuseumHistory Center

The 2000 Fellow Awards Banquet brought togethermore than 300 industry luminaries and enthusiaststo celebrate three new Fellows: Fran Allen, Vint Cerf, and Tom Kilburn.

Banquet emcee Peter Hirshberg, 2000 Fellow Vint Cerf, Museum CEO John Toole, and MuseumTrustee Chairman Len Shustek celebrated with Cerf at his induction as a Fellow.

people who had been in thedevelopment group itself. The Altodemonstrated many new concepts incomputing, and the same design teaminvented so many, many things whoseimpacts are still with us: for example,LANs, Ethernet, bit-mapped displays,graphical user interfaces, laser printing,and object oriented programming.Lecturers discussed how Xerox didbetter capitalizing on ancillaryinvestments at PARC (e.g. Ethernet,physics) than it did on the Alto.

GENE AMDAHL LAUNCHES FALL

LECTURE LINEUP

The first of our fall lecturers, GeneAmdahl spoke on September 5 to anappreciative crowd of 200. He told thestory of how, through a series of eventsat IBM, he was able to identify abusiness opportunity for a theoreticalcompetitor to create a lower-pricedmachine at the high end of IBM’s line.IBM would likely have had to lower theprice of its own high-end machine,impacting the prices of the entire line.Thus, they could not lower prices, evenat the high end, giving a theoreticalcompetitor the edge.

After leaving IBM, Amdahl set out todeliver on this idea under the auspicesof Amdahl Corporation. He relayed someof the difficulties and opportunitiesalong the path and how eventually,through sheer tenacity, Amdahl Corp.was funded by the Heiser Corporationand later, Fujitsu, and Nixdorf, whomade it possible to fulfill his vision. Thecompany grew exponentially: it wentfrom $50 million in sales in its firstyear, to $100 million, $200 million, and$400 million by the fourth year. Amdahlleft the company after five years, andsubsequently founded three othercompanies.

COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS

Here are some of our recentacquisitions:

The IBM 1130. Purchased and donatedby Robert Garner, this small computerdesigned for both scientific andbusiness applications became popularwith universities. Machines like thisoccasionally appear on Internet auctionsites and with help from people likeRobert, the Museum is able to acquirethem for the permanent collection. SaysGarner, "It’s a thrill to discover and thendonate workhorse computers of bygoneeras to the Museum. The mid-westowners of this operational IBM 1130,selling it on eBay, were delighted that itfound a suitable home. I myself havepleasant memories playing Star Trek onthe 1130 late in the evenings while anundergraduate!"

RISC II Chip. Donated by UC BerkeleyProfessor David Patterson, the RISC IIcontained 40,760 transistors and ran at3 MHz. Designed by Bob Sherburne andManolis Katevenis, students ofProfessors David Patterson and CarloSequin, this is the second in arevolutionary line of Reduced InstructionSet Computers.

Aaron Paint System. Donated by artistand inventor Harold Cohen. Aaron, anartificial intelligence-based system fordrawing, has changed over the years.The version donated used a smallrobotic arm with a built-in paint deliverysystem. The association between Cohenand the Museum dates back to the late1970s when Cohen and an earliersystem painted a mural for theMuseum’s original site in Marlborough.

EXHIBITING AT HOT CHIPS

Museum staff created an exhibit for therecent Hot Chips and Hot InterconnectConferences at Stanford University. Theexhibit featured highlights from variousareas of the collection, including DonLancaster’s TV Typewriter Prototype, anearly RISC wafer, and the "canonicalteapot" used in many early computergraphics tests.

Hot Chips organizing committee memberAllen Baum said, "Listening topresentations about the latest cuttingedge technology is great, but it reallyhits home when you can see what usedto be the latest and greatest, and howlittle time it took to advance from there.An exhibit like this gives perspective onwhat we can look forward to, and justhow fast it is likely to come."

CYBERMUSEUM ACTIVITIES

As more physical artifacts make theirway into the digital realm, we will needgreat ways to represent the complexrelationship of ideas, people,companies, and computing machinesthat comprise computing history. Anenthusiastic new addition to the staff,Mike Walton, has joined us as directorof cyber exhibits to help tackle theseproblems. Backed by an impressiveCyberMuseum Committee led by Gordon

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Chuck Thacker and Butler Lampson discussedthe Alto and other advances made during theirtime at Xerox PARC in the final lecture of theSpring program.

Gene and Marian Amdahl stand in front of Gene’sPhD thesis—the WISC computer—after his Falllecture that opened the 2001 lecture program.

Bell, the group is exploringmethodologies for collecting andpresenting stories and oral historiesonline, capturing visitor submissionsabout the artifacts in discussionforums, and taking in digital artifactdonations such as pictures, media, orsoftware.

As the CyberMuseum grows, you willsee it start to manifest in parts of ourcurrent website. Each new experiment completed by the staff will add a newfeature or exhibit to the site. As theprocess is refined, the CyberMuseumwill extend the real-world Museum intocyberspace. In the future, it may alsogive depth to the exhibits in the real-world, physical Museum.

PUBLIC RELATIONS UPDATE

Media attention has stepped up inrecent months. Articles about theMuseum have appeared in the New YorkTimes, International Herald, and the

San Francisco Chronicle among others.Associated Press and Newhouse NewsWire released articles that were pickedup by several publications across thecountry. CNN.com taped a show in theVisible Storage Exhibit Area featuring an interview with John Toole, KICUChannel 36 ran an interview with Toole,and NPR featured an interview withMuseum Board of Trustees ChairmanLen Shustek.

APPRECIATION FOR OUR VOLUNTEERS

Volunteers have given their all at anumber of work parties, receptions, andevents over the past four months.Museum staff had the happy occasionto honor and thank these wonderfulvolunteers at an Appreciation Party onAugust 18. A picnic at Chase Park,Moffett Field, featured horseshoes,volleyball, Texas barbecue, and "Carniacthe Magnificent," a computer historytrivia buff wearing a turban andcape–aka John Toole!

VISIT THEMUSEUM’SON-LINESTORE

We are proud to makeMuseum souvenirs and itemsfrom our archives available toyou, including:

VIDEOS

200+ UVC videos from the Gray-Bellarchive include presentations bycomputing legends and innovators. Seeand hear Seymour Cray, Danny Hillis,John Hennessy, Alan Kay, JamesGosling and others talk about their workand visions.

POSTERS

Some of our most popular items. Ourposters depict the stories of theInternet, microprocessor evolution,memory, and the chronology ofcomputers. The posters are bothbeautiful and educational.

DECWORLD 2001 ITEMS

Tote bags and polo shirts are of veryhigh quality and celebrate a companythat impacted computing history (seearticle on page 2).

HATS

Our staff and volunteers wear thesebaseball caps proudly (yes, in theMuseum) and we hope you will too.Here’s an easy way to spread the wordabout the Museum.

POSTCARDS

These collectible postcards are printedon high-quality paper, and each onepictures and describes a one-of-a-kindartifact from our collection.

COMING SOON

We will soon be making videos availablefrom the Museum’s lecture series. Visit our website to be put on themailing list:

www.computerhistory.org/store+1 650 604 2577

www.computerhistory.org/store+1 650 604 2577

PA G E 1 9

C O R E 2 . 3

John “Carniac” Toole illuminated and entertainedvolunteers and staff with some amazing factsabout computing history at the annualappreciation event.

Volunteers who attended the Museum’s annualappreciation event received a t-shirt, a certificateof appreciation from the staff and Trustees, a greatbarbeque, and heartfelt thanks from Museum staff.

PA G E 2 0 THANKS TO OUR ANNUAL DONORS

YES, I want to help save computing history. Please process my donation

at the level indicated. I look forward to learning more about the programs

and activities of The Computer Museum History Center, especially its plans

for growth in the coming years.

____ Enclosed is my check payable to:

____ The Computer Museum History Center

____ I prefer to donate stock and will notify you when the transfer is made

____ Charge my Visa _____ Mastercard _____

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____ other $ ________________

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MAJOR CORE SUPPORTER

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CORE SUPPORTER

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Please return this form (or facsimile)

with your remittance to:

The Computer Museum History Center

P.O. Box 367 Moffett Field, CA 94035

USA

+1 650 604 2575 (tel)

+1 650 604 2594 (fax)

www.computerhistory.org

YOUR ANNUAL DONATION to The Computer Museum History Center will

help preserve the artifacts and stories of the Information Age for future generations.

Please help us fulfill this important mission.

CORE 2.3

ANNUAL APPEAL

If your name is on our list of Annualdonors, you are one of a select groupof people who appreciate the impact ofcomputing on our lives. You also takepride in your own role in ensuring thatthis history of innovation is preservedfor posterity. We are grateful for yourgenerosity and support. And if yourname is not on this list, we welcomeyour contribution and will be delightedto add your name to our roster. Youmay use the form on this page to joinour family of donors. Thank you!

STOCK DONATIONS

We gratefully accept direct transfers ofsecurities to our account. Appreciatedsecurities forwarded to our brokershould be designated as follows:

FBO: The Computer Museum HistoryCenter; DWR Account # 112-014033-072; DTC #015; and sent to MatthewIves at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter,245 Lytton Avenue, Suite 200, PaloAlto, CA 94301-1963.

In order to be properly credited for your gift, you must notify us directlywhen you make the transfer. Pleasecontact David Miller with questions orconcerns at +1 650 604 2575.

We acknowledge with deep appreciation theindividuals and organizationsthat have given generously to the Annual Fund.

CCOORREE BBEENNEEFFAACCTTOORRSS -- (($$1166,,338844 ++ ))Gwen & C Gordon BellSteve Blank & Alison ElliottAndrea CunninghamL John Doerr & Ann DoerrDonna DubinskyElaine & Eric HahnJeff Hawkins & Janet StraussGardner Hendrie & Karen JohansenKristina & Mike HomerDavid & Karla HouseThe Krause FoundationJohn Mashey & Angela HeyGrant & Dorrit Saviers FoundationJohn & Sheree ShochLeonard J Shustek

MMAAJJOORR CCOORREE SSUUPPPPOORRTTEERRSS --(($$88,,119922 ++ ))Paul & Evelyn BaranVinton & Sigrid CerfDave CutlerJ Burgess JamiesonJump Start-Up CommunicationsSheldon Laube & Nancy EngelThe Lynch Family FoundationIke & Ronee NassiBernard L PeutoAllen Rudolph

CCOORREE SSUUPPPPOORRTTEERRSS -- (($$11,,002244 ++ ))Sally M Abel & Mogens LauritzenGene & Marian AmdahlDavid & Robin AndersonAustradeThe Avram Miller Family FoundationShanda BahlesJohn & Sheila BanningCraig & Barbara BarrettBruce G & Leona D BaumgartErich & Renee BlochGary BooneJerry BrenholzPeggy BurkeWalter M CarlsonNed ChapinBruce & Gail ChizenPatti & Ed ClussThe Computer Language Company IncR T CosletStephen CrockerCitigate Cunningham

Yogen & Peggy DalalWilliam & Sonja DavidowLloyd & Eleanor DickmanLes EarnestDavid EmersonChris EspinosaThelma & Gerald EstrinGordon E EubanksFederico & Elvia FagginIrwin & Concepción FedermanTracey Stewart & Barry James FolsomFrank-Ratchye Family FoundationBob FrankstonFujitsu MicroelectronicsSamuel H FullerRobert B GarnerThe Bill & Melinda Gates FoundationCharles & Nancy GeschkeCharles GiancarloJohn GrillosRobert & Marion GrimmForrest GunnisonTrip HawkinsWilliam R Hearst IIIStephen & Diana HillChuck & Jenny HouseTim & Nancy HowesChristine Hughes & Abe OstrovskyJohn HumbleColin HunterMatthew B IvesJames N PorterC Bradford JeffriesCraig JensenJerry & Michelle KaplanAlan Kay & Bonnie MacBirdJ S KilbySteve & Michele Kirsch FoundationJerry & Judy KleinDonald & Jill KnuthLucio LanzaKenneth LarsenLaura & Gary LauderMarc LeBrunSam & Sandra LeeRichard & Ellen LowenthalRon & Deb MarianettiJames A MarkevitchKaren H MathewsRobert & Katherine MaxfieldFrank L McConnellCharles McManisTom & Sharon MelcherGordon E & Betty I MooreMalachy MoynihanJim & Stephanie NisbetHal & Juanita NissleyRaymond Ozzie & Dawna BousquetCharles PfefferkornPaul PierceSusan Poduska & John W Poduska

Bill & Rochelle PrattDennis RitchieToni & Arthur RockThe Rockwell International

Corporation TrustTom Stepien & Carolyn RogersDave & Jan RossettiSaal Family FoundationJean SammetPeter & Valerie SamsonMorey & Barbara SchapiraRobert ShawJean ShulerMichael SimmonsCharles SimonyiMichael SkokAlvy Ray SmithSteven & Kim SommerLee & Robert SproullStephen Squires & Ann MarmorSun Microsystems, IncEdward TaftDel Thorndike & Steve TeicherJay M & Arlene B TenenbaumRichard TennantThe Kenneth Lafferty Hess

Family FoundationJohn & Elizabeth TooleLarry & Dawn WeberPaul S WinalskiWilliam Wulf & Anita K JonesJohn & Rosemary YoungAlbert Y YuPierluigi Zappacosta & Enrica D’EttorreRobert & Carrie ZeidmanCindy & Peter Ziebelman

GGEENNEERRAALL SSUUPPPPOORRTTEERRSSAnonymousGeorge B Adams IIIAllan AlcornSaul AmarelJohn AmosMelissa Anderson & Howard LookPaul & Joan ArmerMilt Mallory & Mary ArtibeeThe Dennis & Janet Austin FundCharles BachmanJohn BackusDavid H BaileyRoss BassettAllen Baum & Donya WhiteSandy & Ann BenettPaul BerryMichael BlasgenBruce BlinnBlumberg Capital ManagementBarry W BoehmPaolo BormidaStuart BowenRichard Brand

Douglas BrentlinerFrederick BrooksJohn & Doris BrownWerner BuchholzJack BurnessDennis & Jan CarterStephen CasnerJohn ChangMihir Kumar ChoudharyRichard J ClaytonRichard & Dorene CohenPaul L ComeyGeorge ComstockJefferson ConnellMichael CoulterNaren DasuPeter & Dorothy DenningFrank DietrichMark DuncanJohn DykstraRay EganJohn EhrmanJack EsbinMr & Mrs Bob O EvansDouglas G FairbairnSimon & Amy FavreJim ForsterJohn & Wendy-Ann FrancisBill & Peri FrantzBarbara & Joseph FredrickDwight FreundBandit GangwereChris GarciaGeorge GlaserBob & Dee GloriosoMichael GodfreyGary M GoelkelEli GoldbergBert GraeveGeorgia R Grant & Paul V AtkinsE Michael GreenawaltPhilip GregoryJoe GrossRollin C HardingAnn HardyRoy & Virginia HarringtonDan HillWin HindleThea HodgeDave & Sharon HoytIBM International FoundationJohn ImpaliazzoSam IsmailTom JenningsLuanne JohnsonSuzanne M JohnsonChuck KaekelBrewster KahleRobert Kahn & Patrice LyonsLaurel & Ray KaledaMark Kaminsky

Jordin KareRichard KashdanRandy KatzTabinda KhanSteven KloosterEric KorpelaJohn KowaleskiPhilip KurjanThomas KurtzLarry KwicinskiMichael A LambertGrayson & David LaneCecilia A LarsenJohn L LarsonDavid A LawsRoy Kwok Ming LeeDebbie LienhartJefferson LillyJoyce Currie LittleFred LoewyThomas P LojaconoCarl & Claudia LowensteinJim Lyons & Virginia LyonsSlava & Hana MachWalter MainMichael MalcolmJohn Maloney &

Roxanne Guilhamet MaloneyConnie MartinezGeorge MaulStanley & Maurine MazorStuart McHughPaul MeolaMicrosoft Matching Gift ProgramDavid MillerCharlene MiyashitaKenrick Mock & Khristy ParkerJeff MoffattJ Craig MudgeJohn MurrayStephen NagyMarilee NiemiLandon NollMike & Betsy NoonenDavid NovakDave OlsonJames L PaulosShirley & Douglas PearsonS Michael PerlmutterMichael PiqueMichael PittoroMonroe H PostmanAntonio Elder PradoRobert PraetoriusDonald & Sandie PughCarol RandallMark ReschDr Glenn RicartDavid RicheyFrederic RicquebourgAnnie Roe-Rever

Phillip RuppKathleen L RydarPaul Saffo IIIJohn & Linda SailorsGordon Saint ClairRita Seplowitz SaltzJohn & Christine SanguinettiStephen SavitzkyEric SchmidtFritz SchneiderMarge SentousMatthew & Melissa ShaferChris Sheedy & Marsha BrewerRobert SherwoodPrashanth ShitikondDick ShoupDan & Karon SiewiorekChris & Jade SimonsonParamjeet SinghDavid SingmasterAlan Jay SmithJoseph M SmithMatt Chew SpenceDag SpicerLee & Robert SproullLarry StaleyDavid StearnsSteven StepanekArmando StettnerPeter StewartBob SupnikRichard Swan & Claudia MazzettiLarry Tesler & Colleen BartonEdward ThelenFrank TobinJames TomaykoFritz & Nomi TrapnellJoseph Traub & Pamela McCorduckUnited Way of King CountyTeruo UtsumiChristopher VogtDuane & Lorna WadsworthGreg & Susan WagemanBud WarashinaForrest WarthmanMichael WeaverJohn WeirichJohn WhartonDuane WiseJon & Marsha WitkinAnthony J WoodJim WorkDr John G ZabolitzkyJohn Zuk

This information is current as of September 27, 2001. Please notify us of any changes to yourlisting ([email protected]).Thank you.


UPCOMING EVENTS

PA G E 2 1

CONTACT INFORMATION

JOHN TOOLE

Executive Director & CEO+1 650 604 2581jtoole@computerhistor y.org

JENNIFER CHENG

Event and PR Intern+1 650 604 2714cheng@computerhistor y.org

JEREMY CLARK

Registrar+1 650 604 1524clark@computerhistor y.org

PAM CLEVELAND

Event Manager +1 650 604 2062cleveland@computerhistor y.org

LEE COURTNEY

Volunteer Coordinator cour tney@computerhistor y.org

WENDY-ANN FRANCIS

Of fice Administrator+1 650 604 5205francis@computerhistor y.org

CHRIS GARCIA

Historical Collections Coordinator+1 650 604 2572garcia@computerhistor y.org

JESSICA HUYNH

Web Ser vices Intern+1 650 604 2070huynh@computerhistor y.org

KATHY VO JOZEFOWICZ

E-Commerce Intern+1 650 604 2577jozefowicz@computerhistor y.org

DAPHNE LISKA

Development Associate+1 650 604 2579liska@computerhistor y.org

JACKIE McCRIMMON

Acting Executive Assistant+1 650 604 5145mccrimmon@computerhistor y.org

KAREN MATHEWS

Executive Vice President+1 650 604 2568mathews@computerhistor y.org

DAVID MILLER

Vice President of Development+1 650 604 2575miller@computerhistor y.org

CAMILLA NEVE

Development Associate+1 650 604 5133neve@computerhistor y.org

CHARLIE PFEFFERKORN

Museum Collections Consultant+1 650 604 2578pfef ferkorn@computerhistor y.org

DAG SPICER

Exhibits Curator+1 650 604 2160spicer@computerhistor y.org

KIRSTEN TASHEV

Building & Exhibits Project Manager+1 650 604 2580tashev@computerhistor y.org

BETSY TOOLE

Hospitality & Facilities Suppor t+1 650 604 2567etoole@computerhistor y.org

MIKE WALTON

Director of Cyber Exhibits+1 650 604 1662walton@computerhistor y.org

MIKE WILLIAMS

Head Curatorwilliams@computerhistor y.org

KARYN WOLFE

Special Projects Manager+1 650 604 2570wolfe@computerhistor y.org

ROBERT YEH

Administration and Accounting Intern+1 650 604 2067yeh@computerhistor y.org

THE COMPUTER MUSEUM HISTORY

CENTER

Building T12-AMof fett Field, CA 94035, USA+1 650 604 2579+1 650 604 2594 (fax)

orTHE COMPUTER MUSEUM HISTORY

CENTER

PO Box 367, Mof fett Field, CA 94035,USA

WWW.COMPUTERHISTORY.ORG

Current staf f openings can be found atwww.computerhistor y.org/jobs.

Please RSVP for all events and activitiesby calling +1 650 604 2714 or visitingwww.computerhistory.org/events.Please verify location and date 24 hoursprior to attending. Thank you!

THU, OCTOBER 11, 6:30 PM

FROM SMALLTALK TO SQUEAK

Dan IngallsLOCATION: Xerox PARC, Pake Auditorium

WED, OCTOBER 17, 6PM

EARLY COMPUTER MOUSE ENCOUNTERS

Panel Presentation: Daniel Borel, StuartCard, Bill English, Jean-Daniel Nicoud,and Niklaus WirthLOCATION: Xerox PARC, Pake Auditorium

TUE, OCTOBER 23, 6 PM

ANNUAL FELLOW AWARDS BANQUET &

SWISS TECHNOLOGY RECEPTION

LOCATION: Fairmont Hotel, San Jose,California, USAwww.computerhistory.org/fellows

MON, OCTOBER 24, 6 PM

LECTURE TITLE TO BE ANNOUNCED

Fred Brooks, University of NorthCarolina Chapel Hill

THU, NOVEMBER 8, 6 PM

QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Donald Knuth, Stanford University

THU, DECEMBER 6, 6 PM

LECTURE TITLE TO BE ANNOUNCED

Eric Schmidt

POSTPONED.

DORON SWADE, AUTHOR

THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE

Please check our website for new dateand time

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

The Museum tries to match its needswith the skills and interests of itsvolunteers and relies on regularvolunteer support for events andprojects. Monthly work parties generallyoccur on the 2nd Saturday of eachmonth, including:

NOVEMBER 10, DECEMBER 8,

JANUARY 12

Please RSVP at least 48 hours inadvance to Betsy Toole for work parties,and contact us if you are interested inlending a hand in other ways! For moreinformation, please visit our volunteerweb page atwww.computerhistory.org/volunteers

C O R E 2 . 3

Explained from CORE 2.2

THE COMPTOMETER

The early, wooden-cased Comptometermechanical calculator was invented in1886 by Dorr E Felt of Chicago, whoclaimed that it was the first successfulkey-driven adding and calculatingmachine. For each digit to add, apushbutton numbered from 1 to 9 isselected, thereby rotating a Pascal-typewheel with the corresponding number ofincrements. The carrying of tens is accomplished by power generated by

the action of the keys stored in a helicalspring, which is automatically releasedat the proper instant to perform thecarry. Numbers are subtracted byadding the complement (shown on thekeys in smaller numbers).

Through effective marketing and training(at Comptometer Schools) of skilledoperators versed in complementarithmetic, these machines became the

workhorses of the accounting professionin the first part of the century. Theynever successfully advanced into theelectromechanical era, but remainedpurely mechanical, two-function addingand subtracting machines.

For further information:http://members.cruzio.com/~vagabond/ComptHome.html#Intro

Please send your best guess [email protected] before11/15/01 along with your name andshipping address. The first three correctentries will each receive a free poster:COMPUTER CHRONOLOGY – THE

EMERGENCE OF THE INFORMATION AGE

The Computer Museum History Center

PO Box 367, Moffett Field, CA 94035 USA

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NONPROFIT ORG

U.S. POSTAGE

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PERMIT NO. 50

MYSTERY ITEMSFROM THE COLLECTION OF

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WHAT ISTHIS?THIS ITEM WILL BE EXPLAINED IN THE

NEXT ISSUE OF CORE.

Core Magazine October 2001 - Computer History...

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