Australian Computer Museum Looking For Space 197
tqft writes "The Australian Computer Museum Society needs space. Basically they have nowhere to store their large collection of hardware. Can you help? Do you or your employer have the floor space they could use? Or should it all be trashed?"
Government (Score:2, Insightful)
If they can not find something, the goverment should find something for them, even if its temporary, until the find somewhere permeant!!
You people have no clue what so ever (Score:5, Insightful)
In case of the normal computer museums I've seen we're not talking about your average PC or even an Apple 2. Sure, I have ~30 computers in storage and most of the space goes for big VAXen and PDPs but normal museums have huge mainframes, like IBM 360s and like.
It is history worth preserving and a magnificent history at that. Think of all the IBMs, DEC-machines (KL-11 anyone ?), Crays, Burroughs machines and even old tube/relay-based number crunchers.
You ignorant twats can't appreciate anything older than a Amd Athlon.
Shouldn't be a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
And they can take the antique POS I use at work there when they do it.
Re:May I propose a cardasian question? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it has historical value. It's a trail of where we've been, that's all. Yes it's all sentimental, but keeping at least one example (and not a warehouse-full of the same samples) allows students to see where we've been, and how we got to where we are now. Even if it's acedemic, learning the incatracies of the C-64 hardware now in 2003 will help somebody follow the path to 64-bit programming in a step-by-step fashion. I still want to pick up a Vic-20 from some pawn shop just so's I can start following what the hell all these slash-dotters are talking about, but I understand the process of evolution. Hopefully this is still applicable.
Even if you hadn't slipped up on the conversion... (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, the bright fellow goes down to the vault, gets the tapes, and finds that many of them haven't crumbled. Problem is, he doesn't have a machine to read them, so first he has to build a new drive to read the tape, then he has to re-engineer the computer and OS that were used to make the tapes, then he has to figure out what the bombing codes on the tape stand for. This is real life, not a hypothetical.
So you never know what might help, or even save lives. It has all the value that recording any kind of history has. These people aren't just piling this stuff up in a room. That would indeed be collecting junk, since a dead computer is merely a metal curiousity. You can hardly learn anything comparing a computer from 1980 to one from today by gross phsyical examination. The goal is to keep the machines operational on a constant basis. We need to keep in contact with that history, and a country the size of Australia certainly should be able to support a museum as large as a Wal-mart, let alone the small actual size of this thing.
It's a little like scoffing at the idea that any library need ever be as large as the Library of Congress just because you don't need such a thing in your neighbourhood. A whole country may very well need one.
Um, well, it's a museum. (Score:1, Insightful)
n.
A building, place, or institution devoted to the acquisition, conservation, study, exhibition, and educational interpretation of objects having scientific, historical, or artistic value.
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If they threw all their 'junk' out they wouldn't be a museum anymore, you see.
More of a problem than you think (Score:5, Insightful)
This is Sydney, unfortunately. If you own a spare 1000 m^2 in Sydney, then you're already a millionaire. And that's without even building anything on it. Property prices have become obscene in the last few years. A shed covered with kangaroo repellent would probably sell for a cool $300k in Sydney. More, dependent on position.
DeeK