A Personal CyberMuseum: Documents, Photo Albums, Talks, and Videotapes about Computing History

Gordon Bell timelines for an overall computer history timeline of significant entities and events in Information Processing.

·         Timeline of Computing History BC-2013. Computers, languages, semiconductors, inventions and the like. This timeline consisting of 8 parallel lines is organized around the principle functions of information processing as they affect use. The main line is computers for people. Other lines: computers for science and engineering, record keeping, communications and networking, computers for control, and the control element (algorithms, architectures, languages).

·         Gordon Bell’s Computer History Timeline BC-2013 of 500 or so important events in the invention and evolution of the computer including processors, storage, semiconductors, computers, languages, people and more.

·         Please review, add, comment, correct and return your feedback to me if you feel up to the task.

Note on Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) artifacts:

Documents of historical interest that have been scanned

Digital Equipment Corporation Books

Papers and Reports

·         Bell, C. Gordon STARS: The Rise and Fall of Minicomputers  IEEE Global History Network, posted 22 January 2013. This paper was written with the co-operation of the IEEE GHN editors and editorial policies e.g. format, word count.  The importance of the minicomputer’s contribution to personal computing and networking were significant-- minis pioneered apps that became completely stand-alone industries.  The paper describes how almost 100 companies came into existence doing this era (1965-1985) based on LSI technology, an Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) tiered market structure for creating new applications in real time control, communication switching, user interface, and smaller scale computation and record keeping for business and word processing.

·         Bell, G. “Out of a Closet: The Early Years of The Computer [X]* Museum”. Technical Report.  MSR-TR-2011-44.  This technical report was written for Professor Brian Randell’s 75th Festschrift. The 2011 opening at the Computer History Museum of the world’s largest and most complete physical and cyber exhibit of computing history marks the sixth stage of a public museum’s evolution, which began in 1975 with a closet-sized exhibit in a Digital Equipment Corporation building, migrating to The Computer Museum, Boston.  In 2011, it lives in a 119,000 square foot public home plus its artifact storage facility.  This chance/luck driven evolution of an institution is due to the dedication and leadership of a few people who persuaded hundreds of others that the endeavor was worthwhile and needed their support.  They would not let it die!  Behind nearly every artifact, exhibit, and pioneering effort is a story that the museum is dedicated to understand and tell. This is the story leading to the Computer History Museum, Mountain View, Ca. The heroes in the story are Ken (Olsen), Gwen (Bell) and Len (Shustek). Ken was a critical, seminal founder and supporter from the early 1970s. Gwen was its main keeper from 1979 till 1998. Len picked up the torch in 1994.

PowerPoint Albums and Talks of Computing History

Gordon Bell Perspectives and Memoirs on Significant Computer Pioneers

Netshow Videos and Videotapes

Gordon Bell Biographical Material including Interviews, etc.

Gwen and Gordon Bell Artifacts Collection

Books

These books were encoded at Carnegie-Mellon University and hosted at their Universal Library http://www.ulib.org/ . With the exception of High Tech Ventures, the books are out of print and unavailable. 

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