CHM Blog

CHM Live, Exponential Center

Silicon Valley: The Heart of the Untold Story

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Silicon Valley: The Untold Story, a new three-part documentary from award-winning Kikim Media airing on Discovery’s Science Channel in March 2018, reveals what has made Silicon Valley a hotbed of innovation and entrepreneurship for decades. As the community and educational outreach partner for the film, the Computer Hi

Education

CHM’s Silver Lining Playbook: How to Benefit from Delays

Friday, February 9, 2018

This is the third post in an ongoing series about the making of the Computer History Museum’s Education Center.

CHM Live, Museum News

CHM Live Kicks Off 2018 with New Speaker Series Inside the Transformation & Technically Speaking

Thursday, February 1, 2018

Inside the Transformation, created by CHM Live Managing Producer Lauren Miyamoto, illustrates the impact and implications of computing through stories of transformative people, companies, or projects. Speakers in this series are visionaries using technology to solve problems in new ways, to redefine boundaries, and eve

CHM Live, Exponential Center

Not Just for Calling Anymore: The Social Impact of the iPhone Revolution

Thursday, January 25, 2018

It will ruin your eyes, turn your brain to mush, and kids will see things they shouldn’t. The content is all just designed to sell stuff. It will destroy relationships—people won’t interact with family and friends in person anymore. What innovation prompted these dire predictions? The television when it came on the sce

From the Collection, Software History Center

The Shocking Truth Behind Arnold Nordsieck’s Differential Analyzer

Thursday, January 18, 2018

In 1950, the physicist Arnold Nordsieck built himself this analog computer. Nordsieck, then at the University of Illinois, had earned his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, under Robert Oppenheimer. To make his analog computer for calculating differential equations, the inventive and budget-conscious Nordsi

CHM Live, Software History Center

Women, Gender, Sexuality, and Computing History

Thursday, January 11, 2018

The experience of women, and the issues of gender and sexuality, are vitally important to our understanding of the story of computing, and hence our contemporary world, for many reasons. Perhaps most straightforwardly, women have been ubiquitous throughout the history of computing as makers and users of it. As Eileen C

CHM Live, Exponential Center

Making Trouble: Leslie Berlin Explores the People Who Built Silicon Valley

Friday, January 5, 2018

One of Silicon Valley’s great advantages, says author Leslie Berlin, is how accessible experienced founders and legendary CEOs are to the next generation of entrepreneurs. Steve Jobs counted David Packard of Hewlett-Packard and Robert Noyce of Intel among his mentors. Facebook’s young founder Mark Zuckerberg looked to

Museum News

10 Most-Read @CHM Blogs of 2017

Friday, December 29, 2017

2017 proved a remarkable year for computing and the Computer History Museum (CHM) in many ways, and we’ve documented it all on our blog. Join us as we revisit our 10 most-read blogs of 2017.

Curatorial Insights, From the Collection

In the Holiday Spirit: Festive Music by Computer!

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Before computer gaming, music, and art became mainstay applications and tools for creation, engineers often created programs to demonstrate a machine’s capabilities in ways that were easy for the public follow. It took many years to get musicians into the idea of composing using a computer, and even longer to get gener

CHM Live, Exponential Center

From Sailboats to Startups: Diane Greene’s Silicon Valley

Friday, December 15, 2017

Diane Greene says her favorite experience ever was when, as a young woman, she windsurfed 15 miles from Molakai to Maui . . . alone. That confidence in her abilities and comfort with taking risks has served her well throughout her storied career as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, leading engineering teams and cofounding