NOTE: The NEW Computer Museum is now the New Media Museum — check it out!
This page is here for archival purposes.
Here is a press release about the New Computer Museum, Virtual Edition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
New Computer Museum sets up shop in virtual space
Cambridge, MA – October 16, 2015 – The New Computer Museum is releasing a new 3D interactive “virtual edition” on Sunday, October 18th.
The goal of the “virtual edition” of the New Computer Museum is twofold. It demonstrates the vision of what the “real life” computer museum would look like, and it stands on its own as a valuable educational experience. It is a fun virtual “play room” for computerphiles, too.
A team from the New Computer Museum will be giving demonstrations of the new application Sunday, October 18th from 1 pm to 2 pm at Champions Sports Bar in Cambridge. They will also answer questions about the software, the Meetup group and local computer history in general.
The New Computer Museum is a two year old attempt to address a pressing need. There hasn’t been an organization specifically charged with preserving and exhibiting computer history in the Boston area since 1999 when The Computer Museum closed its doors, moved west and became what is now the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.
The Computer History Museum still has a web site dedicated to preserving and celebrating The Computer Museum as it was in Boston, but this doesn’t address the need for an organization to preserve Boston/Cambridge computing history today. Since The Computer Museum here closed, a lot of historical computers and related materials have been accumulating in closets, basements, garages, storage units and barns. There are collectors and groups dedicated to computing history, but there is nothing as formal as The Computer Museum was when it was here.
People know what they have is historic, so they don’t get rid of it, but they don’t have a local place for it to go where they can trust that it will be saved for posterity. The goal of the New Computer Museum is to establish a formal museum here. In the meantime, the New Computer Museum Meetup group is tasked with helping to save and share local computing history.
Mary Hopper is the Director and primary sponsor of the New Computer Museum, Microsoft NERD Center serves as a sponsor by providing space to hold “pop-up” exhibits, and other groups such as Adam Rosen’s Vintage Mac Museum also contribute equipment and support.
New Computer Museum Web Site https://newcomputermuseum.org/
New Computer Museum Meetup http://www.meetup.com/New-Computer-Museum/
The Computer Museum http://tcm.computerhistory.org/
Contact:
Mary E. Hopper, Ph.D.
mehopper@mehopper.net
Ph: 617-642-3753
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Link: NEWCM-VED_Press-Release
Here are some write-ups about an earlier iteration of the NEW Computer Museum…
Boston Globe’s BetaBoston
Digital Den creator pushes for a new Boston-area computer museum (Daniel Dern, BetaBoston, March 24, 2014)
Boston Tech Breakfast Meetup
Mary Hopper presented at …
Boston Tech Breakfast Meetup, Friday, November 8, 8 am
Microsoft N.E.R.D. Center, One Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA
http://www.meetup.com/Boston-TechBreakfast/
Society of History of Technology
Mary Hopper presented at …
SIGCIS Workshop: Recomputing the History of Information Technology
Sunday, October 13 in Portland, ME http://www.sigcis.org/workshop13
New Computer Museum Launch Party
Digital Den sponsored the New Computer Museum Launch Party on Sunday, October 20th
See Press Release (Mary Hopper, Digital Den)
See Launch Party Photos (Rus Gant, Digital Den)
Boston Globe
A passion to preserve the digital past (Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe, August 31, 2013)
Cambridge museum aims to preserve digital history (Video, August 30, 2013)
Computer World
Slide show” 9 Museums that want your legacy tech
(Daniel Dern, Computer World, October 3, 2013)
A link to the slide show was on SlashDot, and it made it to the top page!
SlashDot post, October 3, 2013
Nashua Telegraph
DEC-heads and ‘Wang gang’ members, take note: A computer museum’s in the works (David Brooks)
The Globe and Mail, Toronto
Why brainiacs love Boston: The city’s Top 10 geeky hot spots (Judith Ritter)
New Computer Museum 