Harold Cohen was a pioneer in computer art, in algorithmic art, and in generative art; but as he told me one afternoon in 2010, he was first and foremost a painter. He was also an engineer whose work defined the first generation of computer-generated art. His system, AARON, is one of the longest-running, continually ma
This month marks 25 years since the Web’s public announcement in several online forums and the release of the WWW code library, libWWW. The library was a kind of “roll your own” tool kit that gave volunteer programmers the pieces they needed to write their own Web browsers and servers. Their efforts—over half a dozen
When Karl Marx said history repeats itself, I don’t think he had Pokémon in mind.The latest entry in Nintendo’s 20-year Pokémon franchise, Pokémon Go hit the App Store on July 6 and instantly became the most popular mobile game in the world. It surpassed blockbuster titles like Slither.io, Clash Royale, and Candy Crush
Visitors to the Computer History Museum frequently want to know: what was the first computer?
Curatorial Insight, From the Collection
We take history seriously at the Computer History Museum. It’s our middle name, after all. But it’s not easy history to do, for several reasons.
John V. Blankenbaker, the inventor of the Kenbak, has a long career in computing, dating back to the 1950s. His association with the Museum dates back to the early 1980s when the Kenbak was named “The First PC” in the Computer Museum’s Earliest PC contest in 1986.
Since 2008, over a hundred billion apps have been downloaded from Apple’s App Store onto users’ iPhones or iPads. However, the technology and tools powering the mobile “app revolution” are not themselves new, but rather have a long history spanning over thirty years, one which connects back to the beginnings of softwar
Today a colleague pointed me to a classic in the study of material culture, E. McClure Fleming’s “Artifact Study: A Proposed Model.” In this essay, Fleming outlines a systematic process for interrogating artifacts: Proceeding from “Identification” and “Evaluation” and on to “Cultural Analysis” and “Interpretation.” Fle
Sixty years ago, on February 14, 1956, two remarkable people addressed a luncheon for scientists, educators and the press at San Francisco’s Hotel St. Francis. One of the speakers would become one of the most successful businessmen and respected philanthropists of his generation. The other would go on to win a Nobel Pr
