The NEW Computer Museum is now the New Media Museum — check it out!
This site is here for archival purposes.
The New Computer Museum facilitated the preservation and exhibition of a variety of computing systems in their original state for the public to experience for five years (2013-1018).
Find out more about the events, activities and press coverage.
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This site is dedicated to four men who helped to shape the mission of the
NEW Computer Museum and have since passed away.
Adam Rosen, Vintage Mac Museum (August 31, 2019)
William German, Mega Computer Collector & Historian (June 3, 2020)
Steve Finberg, MIT Radio Society & Swapfest, Flea at MIT (April 23, 2021)
George Fifield, Boston Cyberarts (November 11, 2022)
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Welcome Area, New Computer Museum v. 1.5
A key accomplishment of the NEW Computer Museum was the creation of a virtual museum.
The goals of the “Virtual Edition” of the New Computer Museum were twofold.
It demonstrated the vision of what a “real” museum had the potential to become, and it also stood on its own as an educational experience. This is particularly true because of the extensive material included in the accompanying NEW Computer Museum Virtual Edition Guide. Finally, it was also an exploration of how the new wave of 3D tools could be used in the context of education and museums.
The core of the New Computer Museum was a 3D interface written in Unity. The video below shows a walk-through of the application. Notice that posters and objects link to content. The “title poster” in each exhibit links to the relevant page in the Guide on this site, while other posters and objects link elsewhere. Finally, the metaphor used in this project was that of a ship at sea, and it was intended to represent the state of the NEW Computer Museum as a ship without a port.
Here are links to the Guide and Gallery pages on this site.
NEW Computer Museum V. Ed. Guide
Earliest Computers
Pioneers Posters
“Big Iron”
Supercomputing Clubhouse
DEC & Friends
Micros Zone
Public Lab & Library
Learning & Computing
Game Arcade
Immersive Experiences
New Computer Museum 