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.
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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
Community Memory: Precedents in Social Media and Movements
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
When studying the social movements and countercultural ethos of the 1960s and 1970s, researchers and historians might not initially think to visit the Computer History Museum for relevant resources. However, the intersections between these sociopolitical phenomena and the histories of early computerized social networks
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Curatorial Insights, Remarkable People
Beckman, Shockley and the 60th Anniversary of the Birth of Silicon Valley
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
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
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From the Collection
The 1986 ACM Conference on the History of Personal Workstations
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
On January 9th and 10th of 1986, at Rickey’s Hyatt House in Palo Alto, California, there was an historic gathering of the pioneers who invented personal computing. The event was sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and hosted by the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Called the “ACM Conferen
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Behind the Scenes, Museum News
Letters to Lovelace Competition at CHM
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
The year 2015 marked Ada Lovelace’s 200th birthday, and, in honor of her mathematical and artistic achievements, the Computer History Museum (CHM) began a year-long celebration to commemorate her legacy with exciting Museum-wide events. Among them was our Letters to Lovelace competition, which asked girls across the Un
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From the Collection, Guest Blog
The Boston Computer Society: Dawn of the Business Personal Computer and Cost-Efficient Home PC
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
This is the second of five video releases of Boston Computer Society (BCS) General Meetings, by the Computer History Museum.
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Guest Blog
The Analytical Engine: 28 Plans and Counting
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
December 10, 2015 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Ada Byron, later Countess of Lovelace, most famous for her 1843 description of Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine.
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Curatorial Insights
The Storage Engine: A Timeline of Milestones in Storage Technology
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
The Storage Engine: A Timeline of Milestones in Storage Technology, a new online exhibit at the Computer History Museum, tells the stories of some of the key people, processes, products, and organizations that have contributed to advances in computer data storage.
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From the Collection
First Steps: Lectures from the Dawn of Computing
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
From the Collection