CHM Blog
The CHM blog showcases ideas and insights from our vibrant community in Silicon Valley and around the world. We take you behind the scenes of our programming, collections, and exhibits. Connecting the past to the present and into the future, we decode technology for everyone.
Curatorial Insights
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Curatorial Insights, From the Collection, Software History Center
Slide Logic: The Emergence of Presentation Software and the Prehistory of PowerPoint
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
In many parts of our world today, group communication centers on visual materials built with “presentation software,” often crafted by a speaker him or herself. As a result, meetings now generally depend on the use of personal computers, presentation software in the guises of product or service and display by digital p
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Curatorial Insights
A Walk through the 2016 Vintage Computer Festival
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
The 2016 Vintage Computer Festival (VCF), an amazing grass-roots showcase of historical computers, was held at the Computer History Museum recently. VCF has a rich history and is a favorite event among computer enthusiasts everywhere with new standout exhibits each year.
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Curatorial Insights, Internet History Program
A Tale of Deleted Cities
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
In the very, very, beginning, the World Wide Web was meant to be a two-way medium. You could post and edit your own pages as easily as you could browse those created by others. But the browsers that made the web popular left out editing features.
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Curatorial Insights, Remarkable People
Harold Cohen and AARON—A 40-Year Collaboration
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
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
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Curatorial Insights, Internet History Program
Happy 25th Birthday to the Public Web!
Friday, August 5, 2016
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
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Curatorial Insights
Pokémon is a Go: Augmented Reality Takes the World by Storm
Friday, July 15, 2016
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
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Curatorial Insights, Software History Center
The Neverending Quest for “Firsts”
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Visitors to the Computer History Museum frequently want to know: what was the first computer?
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Curatorial Insights, From the Collection
The ECHO IV Home Computer: 50 Years Later
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Curatorial Insight, From the Collection
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Curatorial Insights
Programming the ENIAC: an example of why computer history is hard
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
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.
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Behind the Scenes, Curatorial Insights
In His Own Words: John Blankenbaker
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
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.