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.
Software History Center
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From the Collection, Software History Center
NeXT: Steve Jobs’ dot com IPO that Never Happened
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Had Steve Jobs’ first company not bought his second, history likely would have been very different. Apple might not exist today. No iPhone. But what could have happened to NeXT?
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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, 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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Remarkable People, Software History Center
Remembering Andy S. Grove
Monday, March 21, 2016
Andrew S. Grove was a seminal figure in the history of the semiconductor industry, and in the story of high-technology industry in Silicon Valley. He passed away on March 21st, 2016. Born in Hungary in 1936, Grove faced, and overcame, profound challenges: A Jewish child who survived German and then Soviet occupations,
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Curatorial Insights, Software History Center
The Deep History of Your Apps: Steve Jobs, NeXTSTEP, and Early Object-Oriented Programming
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
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
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Curatorial Insights, Software History Center
Reading Artifacts, Finding Culture
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
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
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From the Collection, Guest Blog, Software History Center
The Cryotron: Extremely Rare Superconducting Digital Circuits Come to CHM
Thursday, July 31, 2014
In the early 1950s, a young, enthusiastic and creative electrical engineer named Dudley Buck left the National Security Agency (NSA) for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Buck had worked on some of the first electronic digital computers at the NSA, and in Massachusetts joined the large program to develop