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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From the Collection
The Fairchild Semiconductor Collection of Notebooks and Technical Papers
Friday, March 22, 2013
In July 2012 the Computer History Museum accepted a donation from Texas Instruments Inc. of over 1,300 patent and laboratory notebooks written by Members of the Technical Staff and other employees of the Research and Development Laboratory of Fairchild Semiconductor.
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From the Collection
The Middleton Family at the New York World’s Fair, 1939
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Every year since 1989, the Library of Congress has added twenty-five films to the National Film Registry. These are chosen from “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films” that are at least ten years old.
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Curatorial Insights, Internet History Program
Endangered Online Worlds
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
In the beginning the net was mostly non-commercial, but that began to change as it grew in leaps and bounds. Soon millions around the nation had online access, at home and at work, and the stage was set. The first money-making sites were, of course, about personals ads and about sex. But then entrepreneurs began to lau
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From the Collection
Alvy & Ed
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
I can name the singular moment that began my interest in computer graphics. It was a video we watched on a field trip to the Lawrence Hall of Science. The video was the most amazing thing a six year old had ever seen. It was a series of seemingly unrelated images that moved, but they weren’t real images. This semi-abst
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From the Collection
Adobe Photoshop Source Code
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
When brothers Thomas and John Knoll began designing and writing an image editing program in the late 1980s, they could not have imagined that they would be adding a word to the dictionary.
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Behind the Scenes
William Shockley’s Fortune “Found” in Archive
Friday, February 8, 2013
Every now and then we hear of a document being “found” or “discovered” in an archive.
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Remarkable People
The Relics of “St. Bob”
Monday, January 28, 2013
Born into a mid-west farming community, a doctorate in physics from MIT, co-founder of two of the world’s most influential semiconductor companies, inventor of the modern computer chip and high-tech millionaire, in the later years of the 20th century Robert N. Noyce was the personification of the Silicon Valley success
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Guest Blog
Rebooting the WITCH: News from The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park, UK
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Two months ago, we celebrated the completion of a three-year project to restore the world’s oldest original digital computer back to full working order and to re-assert its place as a Guinness World Record where it was first acknowledged as the world’s most durable computer in 1973. To our surprise and delight, our new
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Behind the Scenes, Internet History Program
The Other Internet, Part II: Cambridge to Kenya
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
With his clipped red hair, freckled ruddy skin, and open yet no-nonsense manner, Nick Hughes could play a British army officer in the movies. But this quietly effective former geologist is the architect of the world’s leading mobile payment system, one that has changed daily life in Kenya and offers a possible glimpse
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Behind the Scenes
Collecting Oral Histories: It Takes a Village (or a Museum)
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Oral histories have the capability of breathing life into inanimate objects. They can bridge gaps by providing introductions to otherwise unknown people, remote places, or obscure things. Most importantly, oral histories have the ability to merge and connect the past with the present, creating a lasting legacy for futu