American Computer & Robotics Museum
The American Computer Museum is a museum of the history of computing founded in May 1990 by Barbara and George Keremedjiev as a non-profit organization and originally intended to be located in Princeton, New Jersey; the museum's location was changed to Bozeman, Montana when the museum's founders moved there. It may be the oldest extant museum dedicated to the history of computers in the world. The Boston Computer museum opened first but closed in 1999.
The museum's mission is "To collect, preserve, interpret and display the artifacts and history of the information age"
Awards
The American Computer Museum won the Dibner Award for Excellence in Exhibits in 1994.
The American Computer Museum presents (with the Computer Science Department of Montana State University) the George R. Stibitz Computer & Communications Pioneer Awards, named for George R. Stibitz who first used relays for computation in 1937.
- Arthur Burks, Chuan Chu, Jack Kilby, Jerry Merryman, James Van Tassel, Maury Irvine, Eldon Hall, Ted Hoff, Federico Faggin
- Ed Roberts, Doug Engelbart
- James Harris, Vinton G. Cerf, Robert E. Kahn
- Steve Wozniak, Tim Berners-Lee, Ray Tomlinson
- Ted Hoff, Federico Faggin and Stan Mazor (together)
- Ralph Baer, Martin Cooper, Leroy Hood, Klein Gilhousen, James Russell, Jon Titus
Items in the Museum's Collection
- Arithmometer
- Model K computer (replica)
- Historical documents related to the history of computing such as original copies of Newton's The Enlightenment and Locke's Humane Understanding
- Telegraph, telephone, cash registers, and office equipment
- The IBM 1620, IBM System/360, Univac 1004, and other mainframe hardware from the 1960's and 1970's
- Analog computers
- Minicomputers
- Signed microcomputing artifacts
- Burroughs 205 (1954)
- Personal computers
- typewriters
- mechanical adding machines
- slide rules
- hand-held mechanical calculators
- IBM 409 (relay based tabulator)
- IBM 604 (vacuum tube calculator)
- IBM 1620 (early transistor machine)
- IBM System/360 mainframe
- IBM System/3 computer
- PDP-8, PDP-8/1 (desktop minicomputers)
- Altair, IMSAI, Commodore PET, SOL, Apple II, III, Lisa, MAC, KIM, SYM (microcomputers)
- electromechanical/electronic calculators
- Friden, SCM, Monroe, Mathatron, Anita, Wang (electromechanical/electronic calculators)
- mechanical, electrical and electronic toys (such as Consul the Educated Monkey (1918), Pong)
- an industrial robot
- an Apollo Guidance Computer on loan from the Smithsonian
- diplays covering topics such as computer memory (ex.: Selectron Tube, core panels, delay lines, etc.), history of electronics
- A Norden bombsight