THE EVOLUTION OF THE GADGETVisit the ancestors of your gear Many of us are thrilled to ditch last year’s tech for the latest must-have gizmo. But Gordon Bell, an early employee of the computer maker Digital Equipment Corporation, hated to see obsolete computers sent to the scrap heap. Bell’s personal collection—which includes a World War II–era Enigma encryption machine and a century-old hand-crank calculator—now forms the core of the most comprehensive trove of computer artifacts in the world, with more than 100,000 items and counting. Today you can visit this archive of our technological past at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, which reopened this past January following a two-year, $19 million makeover that resulted in the 19-gallery exhibition “Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing.”
The exhibit tracks milestones in the progress of computational technology from the abacus to your smart phone. Check out a preserved chunk of Walker’s Wagon Wheel Bar, the legendary Silicon Valley hangout where engineers and investors once mingled as they launched the semiconductor industry; peek into unlabeled drawers for surprises related to the theme of each gallery; and try your hand at historic video games, including the 1972 classic Pong. Other gems include an Apple 1 computer (complete with wooden casing), an original Google server, and the first disk drive, IBM’s 1956 Ramac: Bigger than a refrigerator, it boasts just enough memory to store a single MP3.—Shannon Palus
LIFESTYLES OF THE BRILLIANT AND CURIOUS
Albert EinsteinThe “Einstein at Home” exhibition at the Princeton Historical Society showcases a selection of the iconic physicist’s rarely seen furnishings, photos, and personal memorabilia including his pipe. On display through January 2012.
