Last week we visited the Bonami collection in Zwolle - it focusses on computer-gaming, but also has a vast timeline-collection of computers from the past decades (century).
The museum e.g. shows older mainframe systems, such these parts of an IBM 360 installation.
But the timeline starts with a sizeable range of mechanical digital computing devices (an adding machine computes, doesn't it?). At the very start is a Burroughs Class 1 and then shelves of machines, mostly mid-century.
The great and unusual feature of this museum is that anything that's not behind glass or clearly out of reach behind a counter is free to touch and operate. No power for the electrics, but the mechanical calculators are operable (and were operated - that push-lever of a Barret indeed is weird). On the left there, those are indeed two ANITA calculators.
Developed by Sumlock-Comptometer, so a full-keyboard and decimal internal logic as would have seemed natural to the team. (Note ENIAC was decimal too.) Very fetching colour, that top specimen :)
Showing classic data-processing and database work; several sorters and punchcard writers were scattered about.
Moving past the ring-core memory modules and mainframe 'big iron' machines, there are the mini's starting to emerge with of course many DEC machines. Several PDP-8 amongst the display.
The museum has a gaming-focus; so for the 1970's there is a Pong display. With original period hardware and fully playable - handy little chairs provided for a proper Pong-playing-session!
Moving past the enormous collection of game-consoles (there were so many more game-computers than I ever imagined), the beige explosion of personal computers becomes evident. Amongst the familiar names, several are companies that were making the jump from mechanical computing and writing machines to the electronic domain. Not least IBM and Olivetti that mostly managed it succesfully.
Less expected was this Hermes CRT 4200 computer with built-in screen (the 'CRT') - is that the same Hermes that made the Baby?
And Victor that started-out making massive mechanical adding machines; the name now on a relatively modern (and bland) looking PC of the early 1980s.
The Adler of the push-bar typewriters later joined up with Triumph to become Triumph-Adler or TA. This beige-box is then perhaps a 60-year later descendent of our little Klein-Adler.
Not pictured, but for every decade there were also several game computers of the era displayed as well - and pretty much all working and playable!
But even when not too much into the computer gaming history (of which there is a lot!), this collection manages to impress with an enormous amount of hardware displayed. Great to see so many machines that were 'cool' in their day (or still are, actually :) and some surprising, venerable typewriter brand-names in there as well.
(And if shelves and shelves full of old computer hardware are boring - there is the arcade section with at least 50 machines, all free playable!)
Good visit :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment