I was recently treated to a wonderful tour of Maryland’s only computer museum located right here in Hunt Valley, MD. The museum is co-located with the headquarters of System Source, Inc. and is the brainchild of Bob Roswell, vice president and co-owner of System Source with Maury Weinstein. The museum features computers from the earliest computing devices like abacus and counting “machines” to computers based on vacuum tubes to computers based on integrated circuits. One which caught my eye was the Curta handheld calculator which requires NO batteries. Also featured are very interesting examples of early types of memory devices Mercury delay line memory is displayed and covered as well as core memory and various other types of computer memory. A rare Altair 8800 (circa 1975) is on display. This computer was based on the Intel 8800 series microprocessor and was sold by mail order through Popular Mechanics. Widely credited as the computer that sparked the microcomputer revolution the Altair was known almost as well for its front end bus, the first S-100 bus, eventually becoming the de facto standard for microcomputer buses. This was also the first computer to run Microsoft BASIC and came in a 4K and an 8K version.
Also in the museum is the IMSAI 8080 which is the first BM clone PC and is the machine depicted in the “War Games” movie and designated as WOPR. The museum has pristine examples of the Radio Shack TRS-80, The Apple One (Yes I said Apple One), the Apple II, the Apple IIC and the first Macintosh to name a few. One of my favorites was the “computer” built out of “Lego’s.” Yes, honestly I said “Lego’s.” It can add, subtract, multiply and divide. You have to see it to believe it. Mr. Roswell showed me how it could multiply 2 times 3 and get 6.
I have been around computers for a long time and am familiar with 8 inch floppy disks, 5 and a quarter inch floppy disks, as well as 3 and a half inch floppy disks but this was my first encounter with a two inch floppy disk.
There are card punch machines and computers based entirely on vacuum tubes, both of which are huge by today’s standards. Bob showed me a machine larger than your average refrigerator containing hundreds of printed circuit boards and miles of wiring which performed pretty much the same function as the present day USB port.
I think my personal favorite at the computer museum was the Curta handheld calculator which requires NO batteries ever and can perform addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and even more using special techniques. It was manufactured in Lichtenstein from 1947 until 1970 and sold until 1973. The Curta was only 2 inches by 4 inches in size.
Next was the IMSAI 8080 which was the first microcomputer to be shipped fully assembled. It used an Intel 8080A processor running at 2 MHertz. It had just 4 K of Ram and input output was in the form of front panel switches and LEDs.
Other early computers are on display in the museum as well. The Osborne 1 was the first “portable” computer although the term portable is used loosely here. Next comes the Apple and the rest, as they say, is history.
There are also examples of the early disk drives used on the IBM 360 and similar systems. These were 18 to 25 inches in diameter and weighed, well, way too much.
The computer museum is a great opportunity to learn about the evolution of the modern computer and a lot of fun as well. I would recommend it for anyone.
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