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From "CORE 2.3", a publication of The Computer History Museum.

BY LEN SHUSTEK Like all serious collecting museums, The Computer Museum History Center can only display a small part of the collected artifacts at any one time. In our current temporary facilities at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California, we have configured one of the warehouses into a "Visible Storage Exhibit Area" where you can see, smell, and even (curators should stop reading here!) touch about two hundred of the thousands of items in our collection. And this is only the "iron;" we also have software, documents, photos, posters, audiotapes, videos, films, t-shirts, and coffee cups-everything you need to document the history of a revolution, which this is. Every Museum docent gives a different tour, stopping at certain items, telling unique stories-each weaving different threads of computing history's story. Here is one virtual and very personal tour, and I ask forgiveness if I've omitted any of your favorites. Every item shown here-with the exception of the people pictured!-is currently on display at The Computer Museum History Center. Please see the following sections EARLY COMPUTING ANCESTRAL BEGINNINGS ELECTRONIC BEGINNINGS MEMORY MAKES IT WORK BUILDING SUPERCOMPUTERS MAKING MAINFRAMES MINI COMPUTERS FOR THE MASSES BUT DO THEY STILL WORK? PERSONAL COMPUTING POWER INNOVATION AND FIRSTS ALTERNATE ROUTES AND DEAD ENDS UBIQUITOUS NETWORKING If you have enjoyed this virtual tour of our Visible Storage Exhibit Area, I encourage you to visit in person and see the other two-thirds of it, which altogether is still only 10 percent of our hardware collection. And if you think it is important to preserve these items and stories as a record of one of most remarkable technological achievements of our civilization, please support The Computer Museum History Center. :: Leonard J. Shustek is the chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Computer Museum History Center. Len Shustek's educational background is in computer science (MS, PhD, Stanford University) by way of physics (BS, MS, Polytechnic University in Brooklyn NY). After graduation he joined 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-server computer systems. In 1986 he was co-founder of Network General Corporation, a manufacturer of network 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 the boards of several high-tech startups and three non-profit organizations. He teaches occasionally as a consulting professor at Stanford University, and is a partner at VenCraft, a small "angel financing" venture capital fund. He is also a trustee of Polytechnic University. Write to him at shustek@computerhistory.org

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