Given the recent messages about the Computer Museum in Boston, I thought this newsgroup might be interested in the attached report I wrote a few months ago about their Walk Through Computer Exhibit. I would also point out that there are a large number of interactive exhibits elsewhere in the Musem, especially in the Graphics and the Robotics Galleries. Over recent years, admittedly, throught the development of these galleries, the museum's coverage of historical machines has been reduced - however a further major new gallery is planned for next year which should remedy this situation. The actual task of keeping or getting (very) early machines operational is very difficult. However the Science Museum in London now has a very active programme of computer restoration, and are working , with the help of a large number of volunteers, to get several machines dating from the 1950s working again. (Anybody interested in participating should contact Mr. A.J. Sale, Computer Conservation Project, Science Museum, London SW7 2DD.) Brian Randell -------- TRIP REPORT, COMPUTER MUSEUM, 21 JUNE 1990 During my recent trip to the States I attended the official opening of the Walk Through Computer Exhibit, at the Computer Museum in Boston. Here is a short report I've written on it. The exhibit is fantastic. It is a 50 times real size desk top computer, using two floors of the building, and weighs about eight tons! It has a keyboard whose function keys work, and a fully-functional tracker ball (the ball is 48 inches in diameter) and 108 sq ft colour monitor (implemented by back projection, under control of a MAC actually inside the tracker ball mounting). There is a hard disk (with rotating disks - claimed to be travelling at 30mph at their outer edges), a power supply (including fan), and the largest power plug in the world. Flashing lights are used to give the impression of data passing along wires set into the floor (the mother board) and along giant ribbon cables. It runs one demo program, which initially shows a rotating globe, and then a map of the world on the monitor. You can then use function keys to select a region of the world and then the tracker ball to select two cities. The display then shows a tree search to find a route between the cities, then repeats the route directly, while showing an inset photo of each city visited in turn on the journey. You can then go inside the computer, walking on the mother board and between the ICs. There are numerous colour CRT displays set into the surface of various ICs These displays show how various aspects of the simulated demo actually work. For example, the screen set in the replica Intel 486 can show simple animated pictorial representations of what is going supposed to be going on, down to shots taken from a scanning electron microscope showing an actual 486 in operation. When you exit the computer you find yourself in an area where there is a set of MACs running various excellent interactive demonstration programs, closely keyed to the Walk Through Computer, explaining how computers are built and work. There is for example a very neat program showing an excellent colour perspective drawing of the WTC, complete with rotating globe on its monitor. This demo invites you to assemble your own computer, i.e. choose the processor, memory size, and video card - each time your choice appropriately affects both the listed price of the machine, and the quality and speed of rotation of the globe you see on its monitor. Another fascinating demo describes at various levels of detail what is involved in binary addition (I hope that these demo programs will be made available by the Museum.) Finally, there is a small cinema showing a specially made video, involving both animation and live action, explaining some of the Pascal constituting the demonstration program. This is very good, though it is rather a pity that two excessively nerd-like actors were used to portray the programmers! A video of the whole exhibit is being made for those who cannot visit it in person. This is being sponsored by Intel to the tune of over $100k - the whole exhibit has cost something in excess of 1M dollars. It has received a huge amount of media coverage, not just in the States. (Here in the UK the D