7 ms·

Ask HN: Why did no one save the Living Computers museum in Seattle?

Last I heard it closed and everything was auctioned off. I'm not from Seattle but I'm surprised given the huge tech presence there that no one took over and tried to re-open it, even by crowd funding.

tasspeed 2y ago
Probably a combination of people not having the money to do so right now and the fact that a lot of people would kill to get their hands on some of the stuff in that museum. not sure how much of it was successfully auctioned off but that's just a guess.
shrubble 2y ago
There was no desire to save it on the part of the executors of the Paul Allen estate.
- kridsdale1 2y ago
  His sister. Who apparently hates fun and loves money.
- wrs 2y ago
  That is inaccurate. The executors tried, but they didn’t have the legal ability to do anything but sell the collection. Nobody stepped up to buy it.
jonjacky 2y ago
Details of what happened here: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/5672 http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/5672 via HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41288051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41288051 There were several more HN threads - just search for 'Living Computer Museum' The answer to your question is, the people who made fortunes in this industry -- some of them in Seattle -- are not interested in the history of their industry, even when they made some of it. It's a telling contrast to the wonderful Museum of Flight, also in Seattle.
- coldpie 2y ago
  Jason's write-up is good. It wasn't a museum, it was one guy's personal collection. What happens to your personal collection after you die is up to whoever you leave it to, and they're far less likely to care about it than you do. If you don't have a plan for it when you die, then it will almost certainly be scattered to the winds, as happened here. If Allen wanted to start a museum, then he should have started a museum, which includes finding employees and creating a funding model that will keep it running past the death of one particular sociopath. It's not anyone else's responsibility to "save" his collection.
  - kridsdale1 2y ago
    As someone who lives a mile from Paul-land (SLU Seattle) we feel the loss and mismanagement of his various cool nerd monuments painfully. And we came to the same conclusion. There is an impulse to accuse him of negligence for not setting up these trusts. But he died rather unexpectedly, and certainly decades sooner than he’d “want” to. How many people really bother setting up permanent legacy estate systems while young?
    - hughesjj 2y ago
      Yeah, I blame his sister. I don't know what happened behind closed doors (if anything) but I'm also disappointed neither gates nor balmer seemed to pick up the pieces either, or even Bezos given his presence in SLU
      - asdefghyk 2y ago
        I would have thought his sister would have wanted to keep operating as a kind of memorial to brother.
        blackhawkC17 2y ago
        She likely doesn’t have Paul’s passion for computers…not her fault. Paul Allen could have set up an endowment if he wanted the collection to last. But he didn’t for some reason, despite having founded other formally endowed organizations like the Allen Institute.
mmastrac 2y ago
> The museum closed in February 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[2] In June 2024, The Paul Allen Estate announced that the museum would be permanently closed and that the museum's collection, most of which was owned by the Estate and not the museum itself, would be auctioned off[3] by Christie's.[4] I'm not going to say it was greed on the part of the estate, but they effectively just gave the middle finger to the museum. > Vulcan LLC, a conglomerate that maintains the Allen family’s estate and many business ventures, has been under the leadership of Paul Allen’s sister, Jody Allen, since the former’s death. A controversial billionaire in her own right, Jody Allen has sustained her brother’s more prominent investments, like ownership of the Seattle Seahawks and Sounders. However, more niche projects like LCM+L and the Cinerama theater in Belltown (also closed indefinitely) seem to be of less interest to Vulcan’s new upper management. https://seattlecollegian.com/paul-allen-living-computers-museum-remains-closed-after-years-despite-lifted-covid-restrictions/ https://seattlecollegian.com/paul-allen-living-computers-mus...
- Arainach 2y ago
  I'm no fan of Jody, but "greed on the part of the estate" misallocates the blame. It would have been trivial for Paul to, at any point in his life, set up trusts for his various projects - the LCM, Cinerama, the SciFi museum, MoPop, etc. Paul was surrounded with a fleet of lawyers. These kind of trusts are not esoteric knowledge - they're something any upper middle class or upper class family is likely using to keep assets intact without going through probate. Paul could have set up 5 foundations, given each of them an absurd initial donation of $200M each, and not noticed at all. The fact that he did not do even the minimum legal paperwork to keep them intact rather than part of his estate means that Paul never cared about these things as public benefits or experiences and instead just wanted tax dodges for his toys. This is not a hypothetical. Without doxxing myself too much, I know some people who were involved in running Paul's household and projects. They tried to convince Paul to set up such trusts prior to his death and were not successful. Paul's public image was fairly positive during his life but I've soured on him quite a bit as it has become more obvious that it was a facade. Perhaps his plan to turn South Lake Union into a massive park was legitimate, but the other projects were not.
  - 2y ago
arduinomancer 2y ago
At least someone filmed a tour before it closed a few months ago https://youtu.be/OohnXELGQ74?si=UgHyjv6AKeaTF3kK https://youtu.be/OohnXELGQ74?si=UgHyjv6AKeaTF3kK
lukewrites 2y ago
Losing the museum was a real heartbreaker. To me it was a really special place because it captured that special feeling of getting access to hardware that isn't widely available and just fiddling with it. It's what I remember loving about computers as a kid.
- da-bacon 2y ago
  Yeah me too. I wrote a post about why it hurt so much to lose this place along similar lines https://dabacon.org/pontiff/2024/08/16/requiem-for-the-living-computer-museum/ https://dabacon.org/pontiff/2024/08/16/requiem-for-the-livin...
davepeck 2y ago
It's a genuine tragedy. We were members. It was a fun and interesting place to go to with kiddos every now and then -- particularly on a rainy day. Kids could goof off or, if interested, actually learn. And it was a great resource and community for us local adult nerds. Okay, one photo of my (then much younger) daughter, for old times' sake: https://davepeck.org/random/kiddo-lcm.jpg https://davepeck.org/random/kiddo-lcm.jpg
- vundercind 2y ago
  Damn cute photo. "HOLY SHIT, LOOK AT ALL THE BLINKENLIGHTS!"
alexathrowawa9 2y ago
On this topic, does anyone know where are the best computer museums to visit? What is the biggest one in the world?
- basementcat 2y ago
  Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_History_Museum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_History_Museum Computer Museum of America in Atlanta, GA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Museum_of_America https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Museum_of_America Not a computer museum but I have a soft spot for the Connections Museum in Seattle, WA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_Museum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_Museum
  - nkotov 2y ago
    CHM has been my favorite to visit every time I'm in the area. I do wish they would have more modern stuff though. Especially the period between 90s to 2010s. There are some parts (first iPhone, Palm Pilot), but I wish they would continue because the internet age has been incredibly important.
- simonw 2y ago
  Bletchley Park in the UK is home to the National Museum of Computing - they're both FANTASTIC to visit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Museum_of_Computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Museum_of_Computi... has a working rebuild of a Colossus Mark 2.
- rexreed 2y ago
  A secret amazing museum: System Source just north of Baltimore: https://museum.syssrc.com/ https://museum.syssrc.com/. Much more amazing than the website makes it seem!
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Vultures did not value Paul Allen’s ideas and investments, but are happy to benefit from it while tearing down the pieces they don’t personally care about or benefit from. It’s the same story as anything else, but I agree it is strange someone like Bill Gates didn’t step in to buy out the museum.
RIMR 2y ago
The Museum's thin profit margin disappeared during the pandemic, and the Allen estate decided they could extract money selling off all of Paul's vintage computers, rather than take a few years of losses to keep these treasures available to the public. Unless you were willing to donate your cash to the Allen family so that they could throw it on top of their Scrooge McDuck wealth pile, the museum was doomed. They weren't interested the actual cultural value of the collection. With that said, keep a close eye on MoPop's collection should they ever run into any financial difficulty.
hnpolicestate 2y ago
Societal eshitification. Statue of Liberty is expensive real estate too. Build some condos.
- basementcat 2y ago
  Maybe this is something DOGE can look into.
- Spooky23 2y ago
  Ellis island could easily be converted into luxury condos. You could serve finance bros in NYC and New Jersey!
Animats 2y ago
It's a huge effort to keep large old hardware going. It took a major effort to restore one IBM 1401 at the Computer Museum in Mountain View. The Connections Museum in Seattle has several working telephone central office switches.[1] They're only open for a few hours a week. I wonder how much longer that will last. [1] https://www.telcomhistory.org/connections-museum-seattle/ https://www.telcomhistory.org/connections-museum-seattle/
- disqard 2y ago
  I've been there, and it's definitely worth it -- if anyone is in the Seattle area, go check it out asap!
deleted 2y ago
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asdefghyk 2y ago
Even people like Bill Gates, would have more money than knows what to do with. Keeping museum operating would be a rounding error in their fortune ......
hm-nah 2y ago
Ya know…you go once, drag your family to it, etc. It’s not a repeat excursion for locals. Without some serious interactive exhibit$, that attract schools of children, annually… doesn’t feel like a sustainable business model. Especially with that price tag. Maybe more of an add-on room to the Museum of History and Industry.
- ainiriand 2y ago
  A museum does not need a business model, per-se. If it goes in the national interest it should be preserved by the country.
- da-bacon 2y ago
  Maybe I’m the exception but I went maybe 30 or 40 times. There was so much joy in sharing my childhood with my child. Also the small gift shop had someone who knew their obscure technology history book, I must have bought 10 books from that shop.
ellisd 2y ago
There was no announcement regarding the opportunity to transfer the collection to new owners. If such an announcement was made, it was done without any public disclosure. I find the claims throughout the HN comments that the LCM board was openly taking offers disingenuous at best. My personal attempts to contact the museum in 2021 about this were met with no reply. I even reached out to former staff members and a Seattle Times reporter who covered the LCM via their social media accounts, and they were equally in the dark about what was happening internally. It was only at the Christie's auction in 2024 that the true intentions of the board became clear. If you look at the 2023 IRS filings from the LCM, they donated $1.1 million to the "Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum" [1], another one of Paul's collections/museums. This museum was also closed under the same COVID circumstances and only reopened after Steuart Walton purchased the collection [2]. It is mind-boggling that the same thing did not occur for the LCM, considering the number of multi-millionaires and billionaires in the Seattle area whose fortunes were built on the backs of the computers the LCM aimed to preserve and share with the world. We will look back at this decision to abandon and sell off the LCM as a shameful disruption of Seattle's own computing culture and industry, which transformed our world. For now, the small museum at RePC (non-living, unfortunately) or the homes of personal computer collectors are all that remain in our city. RIP LCM — while you're gone for now, I will never forget the time I was able to use your Xerox Alto [3] and, to my surprise, meet one of the original engineers who crafted its software. [1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460979323/full https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Heritage_%26_Combat_Armor_Museum#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Heritage_%26_Combat_Arm... [3] https://medium.com/vulcan-inc/xerox-alto-is-rebuilt-and-reconnected-by-the-living-computer-museum-e56a7e86be91 https://medium.com/vulcan-inc/xerox-alto-is-rebuilt-and-reco...
readyplayernull 2y ago
Computers are objects of Theseus: leaking capacitors, tin whiskers, degrading plastics and rubber, etc. Also nobody is making CRTs anymore, except for some certified avionics parts.
puppycodes 2y ago
Seattle is a lot smaller than I realized before visiting it and even smaller to the tech executives who live in a bubble within a bubble within Jeff Bezo's literal downtown bubble.
deleted 2y ago
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decide1000 2y ago
In the Netherlands there is a similar initiative, non-profit, crowd-funded. I have been there many times and it is amazing, hundreds of old computers and devices. YOU CAN USE THEM ALL! You can buy a ticket for €10,- or "adopt" a computer for 128,- per year. They will turn on/off the device daily. Your name can be on a card next to it. They also collect new(er) laptops to give them to families who cannot afford one. Check the dropdown with computers which are not adopted yet, its huge! https://www.homecomputermuseum.nl/en/museum/bezoekinformatie/toegangsprijzen/adopteer-een-pc/ https://www.homecomputermuseum.nl/en/museum/bezoekinformatie... The full collection: https://www.homecomputermuseum.nl/en/collectie/ https://www.homecomputermuseum.nl/en/collectie/
thorin 2y ago
It was interesting to contrast various museums in UK that I'm aware of. There is the retro computer museum [1] which I've been to in Leicester which I was very impressed with, when talking to the guy he mentioned that they receive no funding and it's all run by volunteers. It's entirely self supporting and very good! There is a national museum of videogames [2] which was ok, but ran out of money on it's site in Nottingham and later reopened in Sheffield. I believe this gets a large amount of [maybe lottery] funding >1 million / year. Then there is stuff like Bletchley park site which I need to visit at some point which I assume gets a lot of state funding, I don't know much about this though. [1] https://retrocomputermuseum.co.uk/ https://retrocomputermuseum.co.uk/ [2] https://thenvm.org/ https://thenvm.org/

tasspeed 2y ago

Probably a combination of people not having the money to do so right now and the fact that a lot of people would kill to get their hands on some of the stuff in that museum. not sure how much of it was successfully auctioned off but that's just a guess.

shrubble 2y ago

There was no desire to save it on the part of the executors of the Paul Allen estate.

kridsdale1 2y ago
His sister. Who apparently hates fun and loves money.
wrs 2y ago
That is inaccurate. The executors tried, but they didn’t have the legal ability to do anything but sell the collection. Nobody stepped up to buy it.

jonjacky 2y ago

Details of what happened here: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/5672 http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/5672 via HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41288051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41288051 There were several more HN threads - just search for 'Living Computer Museum' The answer to your question is, the people who made fortunes in this industry -- some of them in Seattle -- are not interested in the history of their industry, even when they made some of it. It's a telling contrast to the wonderful Museum of Flight, also in Seattle.

coldpie 2y ago
Jason's write-up is good. It wasn't a museum, it was one guy's personal collection. What happens to your personal collection after you die is up to whoever you leave it to, and they're far less likely to care about it than you do. If you don't have a plan for it when you die, then it will almost certainly be scattered to the winds, as happened here. If Allen wanted to start a museum, then he should have started a museum, which includes finding employees and creating a funding model that will keep it running past the death of one particular sociopath. It's not anyone else's responsibility to "save" his collection.
- kridsdale1 2y ago
  As someone who lives a mile from Paul-land (SLU Seattle) we feel the loss and mismanagement of his various cool nerd monuments painfully. And we came to the same conclusion. There is an impulse to accuse him of negligence for not setting up these trusts. But he died rather unexpectedly, and certainly decades sooner than he’d “want” to. How many people really bother setting up permanent legacy estate systems while young?
  - hughesjj 2y ago
    Yeah, I blame his sister. I don't know what happened behind closed doors (if anything) but I'm also disappointed neither gates nor balmer seemed to pick up the pieces either, or even Bezos given his presence in SLU
    - asdefghyk 2y ago
      I would have thought his sister would have wanted to keep operating as a kind of memorial to brother.
      - blackhawkC17 2y ago
        She likely doesn’t have Paul’s passion for computers…not her fault. Paul Allen could have set up an endowment if he wanted the collection to last. But he didn’t for some reason, despite having founded other formally endowed organizations like the Allen Institute.

mmastrac 2y ago

> The museum closed in February 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[2] In June 2024, The Paul Allen Estate announced that the museum would be permanently closed and that the museum's collection, most of which was owned by the Estate and not the museum itself, would be auctioned off[3] by Christie's.[4] I'm not going to say it was greed on the part of the estate, but they effectively just gave the middle finger to the museum. > Vulcan LLC, a conglomerate that maintains the Allen family’s estate and many business ventures, has been under the leadership of Paul Allen’s sister, Jody Allen, since the former’s death. A controversial billionaire in her own right, Jody Allen has sustained her brother’s more prominent investments, like ownership of the Seattle Seahawks and Sounders. However, more niche projects like LCM+L and the Cinerama theater in Belltown (also closed indefinitely) seem to be of less interest to Vulcan’s new upper management. https://seattlecollegian.com/paul-allen-living-computers-museum-remains-closed-after-years-despite-lifted-covid-restrictions/ https://seattlecollegian.com/paul-allen-living-computers-mus...

Arainach 2y ago
I'm no fan of Jody, but "greed on the part of the estate" misallocates the blame. It would have been trivial for Paul to, at any point in his life, set up trusts for his various projects - the LCM, Cinerama, the SciFi museum, MoPop, etc. Paul was surrounded with a fleet of lawyers. These kind of trusts are not esoteric knowledge - they're something any upper middle class or upper class family is likely using to keep assets intact without going through probate. Paul could have set up 5 foundations, given each of them an absurd initial donation of $200M each, and not noticed at all. The fact that he did not do even the minimum legal paperwork to keep them intact rather than part of his estate means that Paul never cared about these things as public benefits or experiences and instead just wanted tax dodges for his toys. This is not a hypothetical. Without doxxing myself too much, I know some people who were involved in running Paul's household and projects. They tried to convince Paul to set up such trusts prior to his death and were not successful. Paul's public image was fairly positive during his life but I've soured on him quite a bit as it has become more obvious that it was a facade. Perhaps his plan to turn South Lake Union into a massive park was legitimate, but the other projects were not.
- 2y ago

arduinomancer 2y ago

At least someone filmed a tour before it closed a few months ago https://youtu.be/OohnXELGQ74?si=UgHyjv6AKeaTF3kK https://youtu.be/OohnXELGQ74?si=UgHyjv6AKeaTF3kK

lukewrites 2y ago

Losing the museum was a real heartbreaker. To me it was a really special place because it captured that special feeling of getting access to hardware that isn't widely available and just fiddling with it. It's what I remember loving about computers as a kid.

da-bacon 2y ago
Yeah me too. I wrote a post about why it hurt so much to lose this place along similar lines https://dabacon.org/pontiff/2024/08/16/requiem-for-the-living-computer-museum/ https://dabacon.org/pontiff/2024/08/16/requiem-for-the-livin...

davepeck 2y ago

It's a genuine tragedy. We were members. It was a fun and interesting place to go to with kiddos every now and then -- particularly on a rainy day. Kids could goof off or, if interested, actually learn. And it was a great resource and community for us local adult nerds. Okay, one photo of my (then much younger) daughter, for old times' sake: https://davepeck.org/random/kiddo-lcm.jpg https://davepeck.org/random/kiddo-lcm.jpg

vundercind 2y ago
Damn cute photo. "HOLY SHIT, LOOK AT ALL THE BLINKENLIGHTS!"

alexathrowawa9 2y ago

On this topic, does anyone know where are the best computer museums to visit? What is the biggest one in the world?

basementcat 2y ago
Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_History_Museum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_History_Museum Computer Museum of America in Atlanta, GA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Museum_of_America https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Museum_of_America Not a computer museum but I have a soft spot for the Connections Museum in Seattle, WA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_Museum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_Museum
- nkotov 2y ago
  CHM has been my favorite to visit every time I'm in the area. I do wish they would have more modern stuff though. Especially the period between 90s to 2010s. There are some parts (first iPhone, Palm Pilot), but I wish they would continue because the internet age has been incredibly important.
simonw 2y ago
Bletchley Park in the UK is home to the National Museum of Computing - they're both FANTASTIC to visit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Museum_of_Computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Museum_of_Computi... has a working rebuild of a Colossus Mark 2.
rexreed 2y ago
A secret amazing museum: System Source just north of Baltimore: https://museum.syssrc.com/ https://museum.syssrc.com/. Much more amazing than the website makes it seem!

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

Vultures did not value Paul Allen’s ideas and investments, but are happy to benefit from it while tearing down the pieces they don’t personally care about or benefit from. It’s the same story as anything else, but I agree it is strange someone like Bill Gates didn’t step in to buy out the museum.

RIMR 2y ago

The Museum's thin profit margin disappeared during the pandemic, and the Allen estate decided they could extract money selling off all of Paul's vintage computers, rather than take a few years of losses to keep these treasures available to the public. Unless you were willing to donate your cash to the Allen family so that they could throw it on top of their Scrooge McDuck wealth pile, the museum was doomed. They weren't interested the actual cultural value of the collection. With that said, keep a close eye on MoPop's collection should they ever run into any financial difficulty.

hnpolicestate 2y ago

Societal eshitification. Statue of Liberty is expensive real estate too. Build some condos.

basementcat 2y ago
Maybe this is something DOGE can look into.
Spooky23 2y ago
Ellis island could easily be converted into luxury condos. You could serve finance bros in NYC and New Jersey!

Animats 2y ago

It's a huge effort to keep large old hardware going. It took a major effort to restore one IBM 1401 at the Computer Museum in Mountain View. The Connections Museum in Seattle has several working telephone central office switches.[1] They're only open for a few hours a week. I wonder how much longer that will last. [1] https://www.telcomhistory.org/connections-museum-seattle/ https://www.telcomhistory.org/connections-museum-seattle/

disqard 2y ago
I've been there, and it's definitely worth it -- if anyone is in the Seattle area, go check it out asap!

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

asdefghyk 2y ago

Even people like Bill Gates, would have more money than knows what to do with. Keeping museum operating would be a rounding error in their fortune ......

hm-nah 2y ago

Ya know…you go once, drag your family to it, etc. It’s not a repeat excursion for locals. Without some serious interactive exhibit$, that attract schools of children, annually… doesn’t feel like a sustainable business model. Especially with that price tag. Maybe more of an add-on room to the Museum of History and Industry.

ainiriand 2y ago
A museum does not need a business model, per-se. If it goes in the national interest it should be preserved by the country.
da-bacon 2y ago
Maybe I’m the exception but I went maybe 30 or 40 times. There was so much joy in sharing my childhood with my child. Also the small gift shop had someone who knew their obscure technology history book, I must have bought 10 books from that shop.

ellisd 2y ago

There was no announcement regarding the opportunity to transfer the collection to new owners. If such an announcement was made, it was done without any public disclosure. I find the claims throughout the HN comments that the LCM board was openly taking offers disingenuous at best. My personal attempts to contact the museum in 2021 about this were met with no reply. I even reached out to former staff members and a Seattle Times reporter who covered the LCM via their social media accounts, and they were equally in the dark about what was happening internally. It was only at the Christie's auction in 2024 that the true intentions of the board became clear. If you look at the 2023 IRS filings from the LCM, they donated $1.1 million to the "Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum" [1], another one of Paul's collections/museums. This museum was also closed under the same COVID circumstances and only reopened after Steuart Walton purchased the collection [2]. It is mind-boggling that the same thing did not occur for the LCM, considering the number of multi-millionaires and billionaires in the Seattle area whose fortunes were built on the backs of the computers the LCM aimed to preserve and share with the world. We will look back at this decision to abandon and sell off the LCM as a shameful disruption of Seattle's own computing culture and industry, which transformed our world. For now, the small museum at RePC (non-living, unfortunately) or the homes of personal computer collectors are all that remain in our city. RIP LCM — while you're gone for now, I will never forget the time I was able to use your Xerox Alto [3] and, to my surprise, meet one of the original engineers who crafted its software. [1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460979323/full https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Heritage_%26_Combat_Armor_Museum#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Heritage_%26_Combat_Arm... [3] https://medium.com/vulcan-inc/xerox-alto-is-rebuilt-and-reconnected-by-the-living-computer-museum-e56a7e86be91 https://medium.com/vulcan-inc/xerox-alto-is-rebuilt-and-reco...

readyplayernull 2y ago

Computers are objects of Theseus: leaking capacitors, tin whiskers, degrading plastics and rubber, etc. Also nobody is making CRTs anymore, except for some certified avionics parts.

puppycodes 2y ago

Seattle is a lot smaller than I realized before visiting it and even smaller to the tech executives who live in a bubble within a bubble within Jeff Bezo's literal downtown bubble.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

decide1000 2y ago

In the Netherlands there is a similar initiative, non-profit, crowd-funded. I have been there many times and it is amazing, hundreds of old computers and devices. YOU CAN USE THEM ALL! You can buy a ticket for €10,- or "adopt" a computer for 128,- per year. They will turn on/off the device daily. Your name can be on a card next to it. They also collect new(er) laptops to give them to families who cannot afford one. Check the dropdown with computers which are not adopted yet, its huge! https://www.homecomputermuseum.nl/en/museum/bezoekinformatie/toegangsprijzen/adopteer-een-pc/ https://www.homecomputermuseum.nl/en/museum/bezoekinformatie... The full collection: https://www.homecomputermuseum.nl/en/collectie/ https://www.homecomputermuseum.nl/en/collectie/

thorin 2y ago

It was interesting to contrast various museums in UK that I'm aware of. There is the retro computer museum [1] which I've been to in Leicester which I was very impressed with, when talking to the guy he mentioned that they receive no funding and it's all run by volunteers. It's entirely self supporting and very good! There is a national museum of videogames [2] which was ok, but ran out of money on it's site in Nottingham and later reopened in Sheffield. I believe this gets a large amount of [maybe lottery] funding >1 million / year. Then there is stuff like Bletchley park site which I need to visit at some point which I assume gets a lot of state funding, I don't know much about this though. [1] https://retrocomputermuseum.co.uk/ https://retrocomputermuseum.co.uk/ [2] https://thenvm.org/ https://thenvm.org/