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, From the Collection
Buddhism and The Computer
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Many consider novelist Arthur C. Clarke’s 1953 story The Nine Billion Names for God to be one of the finest stories in the history of science fiction. Computers had started to penetrate popular culture and were being used in an impressive array of new applications. Nonetheless, many might have found it a stretch to wri
-
Curatorial Insights, Internet History Program
Happy 40th Birthday, Ethernet!
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
40 years ago on May 23rd, 1973, a young researcher named Bob Metcalfe outlined his new “Ethernet” concept in a memo to his managers at Xerox PARC. Radio and hardware wizard Dave Boggs turned it into a working reality, the network that would connect Alto computers to each other, and to laser printers, and remote servers
-
Remarkable People
The 2013 Computer History Museum Fellows
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Remarkable People
-
From the Collection
The Elbrus-2: a Soviet-era high performance computer
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
The Elbrus series of machines was designed at the Institute of Precision Mechanics and Computer Technology (ITMVT) in Moscow, a prestigious institute under the Soviet Academy of Sciences.
-
Curatorial Insights
Pixar’s Luxo Jr.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Perhaps the single most iconic character in the history of computer graphics isn’t a representation of a living thing. It’s a desk lamp.
-
Remarkable People, Internet History Program
Robert W. Taylor, 2013 CHM Fellow
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Bob Taylor planned to be a Methodist minister, like his father. He ended up an evangelist for an idea that changed the world: easy-to-use computers that talk to each other. “I was never interested in the computer as a mathematical device, but as a communication device,” Taylor said.
-
Remarkable People
Ed Catmull, 2013 CHM Fellow
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
In 2013, the Computer History Museum honored Ed Catmull as a CHM Fellow. Fellows are unique individuals who have made a major difference to computing and to the world around them.
-
Behind the Scenes
The Artifact Doctor Will See You Now
Monday, April 8, 2013
What do a lame fox, loose disk drive reels and J.M. Jacquard’s dirty face have in common?
-
From the Collection, Remarkable People
Harry Huskey, 2013 CHM Fellow
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
From the Collection, Remarkable People
-
Guest Blog
Brograms and the Power of Vaporware
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Recently, Google’s Sergey Brin made waves—or at least invoked a collective eye-roll—when he termed current smartphone technology “emasculating” and suggested Google glass as an antidote. Offering a pair of computer-infused glasses as the solution to the problem of technological emasculation seems as though it might be