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>Does it tell us anything we didn't know, doesn't appear to. So what exactly is the value. What's the value of museums? Of history? This artifact allows you t

>Does it tell us anything we didn't know, doesn't appear to. So what exactly is the value. What's the value of museums? Of history? This artifact allows you to place yourself in the shoes of a chemistry student 150 years ago. This is what they would have seen in the classroom. Not something like this, but exactly this. History is often taught through dates and names; "King blah-blah conquered this land in year blah". But that's just biographies of governments. What's often missing is what the world view of a person living at the time was. Artifacts like this -- and museums in general -- are a part of gives you the answer to this question. To wit: there's nothing about DOS that you wouldn't be able to learn online, but starting DOOM on a 486 in the Living Computer Museum will give you an experience that you wouldn't get by just reading about it.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
>What's the value of museums? Of history? // To devalue my comment in this way is not at all fair, that is not at all what I asked. If you have a picture of the poster then I can see exactly what students at the time had, even that amount of detail is largely superfluous to any benefit - beyond mere curiosity - that I (or seemingly anyone) can derive from it. As a society, it strikes me we should get over clinging to stuff just because it's old. Rather than preserve a not-especially-interesting artefact for posterity; record it, report the detail of it; then leave it in private hands. Use public money for now; University money for current educational needs. Your last para at least approaches the question. But, (and I've done this) the experience of playing an 80s game on an emulator is largely the same, close enough to the experience that you can learn anything implicit in the experience itself IMO. But, this is quite different, that artefact isn't going to be put up in a lecture hall of the C17th, if anything a facsimile will ... at which point the artefact, despite your protestations, still appears to have a intrinsic value approaching zero.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago

>What's the value of museums? Of history? // To devalue my comment in this way is not at all fair, that is not at all what I asked. If you have a picture of the poster then I can see exactly what students at the time had, even that amount of detail is largely superfluous to any benefit - beyond mere curiosity - that I (or seemingly anyone) can derive from it. As a society, it strikes me we should get over clinging to stuff just because it's old. Rather than preserve a not-especially-interesting artefact for posterity; record it, report the detail of it; then leave it in private hands. Use public money for now; University money for current educational needs. Your last para at least approaches the question. But, (and I've done this) the experience of playing an 80s game on an emulator is largely the same, close enough to the experience that you can learn anything implicit in the experience itself IMO. But, this is quite different, that artefact isn't going to be put up in a lecture hall of the C17th, if anything a facsimile will ... at which point the artefact, despite your protestations, still appears to have a intrinsic value approaching zero.