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It's definitely too late for LCM -- the heirs don't care about the societal value and are parting it out. It's gone. It'd be super cool if CHM added a living c

It's definitely too late for LCM -- the heirs don't care about the societal value and are parting it out. It's gone. It'd be super cool if CHM added a living computers wing. They've done a few nice restorations of some large machines, but it's not really the same as something like making a few terminals connected to a PDP-10 directly available to the public. Or some of the early, weird PCs, Unix boxes, Lisp machines.

VonGuard 2y ago
The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment in Oakland has all-playable exhibitions of home computer and console games on original hardware. You can play something on the C64, Atari 800 or Sega Genesis, for example.
dsand 2y ago
There are no heirs for LCM. Allen's will specified what do to in particular with a few of his many assets. But for all the rest, he wrote to sell it all, and donate the raised money to charities. So the will's executor (his sister) does not have the latitude to divert some assets to other outcomes. LCM was never self-sustaining via tickets. It always needed yearly infusions of cash from Allen. Re-opening it as it was would require similar levels of cash to burn. I wish that Allen had loved the LCM enough to design an endowment to keep it going, and had specified in the will how to treat LCM specially. But he did not. What he wanted instead for his legacy, was large cash donations to various charities.
- ghaff 2y ago
  The people railing here are ignoring the fact that for whatever reason (he didn't actually care that much, he was sick and didn't have the time) didn't explicitly provide for this museum to be maintained into the foreseeable future. That may or may not be a bad outcome but it's what happens when someone passes and they haven't made an explicit provision with funding for something they owned. By and large, museums need to cover their operating costs and apparently this one didn't.

VonGuard 2y ago

The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment in Oakland has all-playable exhibitions of home computer and console games on original hardware. You can play something on the C64, Atari 800 or Sega Genesis, for example.

dsand 2y ago

There are no heirs for LCM. Allen's will specified what do to in particular with a few of his many assets. But for all the rest, he wrote to sell it all, and donate the raised money to charities. So the will's executor (his sister) does not have the latitude to divert some assets to other outcomes. LCM was never self-sustaining via tickets. It always needed yearly infusions of cash from Allen. Re-opening it as it was would require similar levels of cash to burn. I wish that Allen had loved the LCM enough to design an endowment to keep it going, and had specified in the will how to treat LCM specially. But he did not. What he wanted instead for his legacy, was large cash donations to various charities.

ghaff 2y ago
The people railing here are ignoring the fact that for whatever reason (he didn't actually care that much, he was sick and didn't have the time) didn't explicitly provide for this museum to be maintained into the foreseeable future. That may or may not be a bad outcome but it's what happens when someone passes and they haven't made an explicit provision with funding for something they owned. By and large, museums need to cover their operating costs and apparently this one didn't.