Computer History Museum

You can make the Computer History Museum as simple or as complicated as you wish. It is a spectacular computer museum and likely the best and largest in the world. After all, it is in the middle of Silicon Valley.

I enjoy the ancient history of computers, going back to 1700 AD or even back to the Incas. Electronics were not involved but it was the same idea. Learning about the massive physical size of the early computers and seeing how they have evolved from occupying an entire room to now having the same memory capability on a minuscule chip.

The early computers ran around $50,000. For those engineers and programmers out there, you can trace the technology from military innovation, virtual memory, floppy disks, magnetic drums, to the breakthroughs of Fairchild in the 1970’s.

The first flash memory did not come out until I was 44 years old in 1974. The first Apple II didn’t go public until 1977. Word processors have made the world of communication a far milestone from the typewriter for those who remember them.

Or those who remember doing research with books in libraries, not online. Spell check, copy and paste, and font selection were nonexistent when I was in college. If you made a mistake, you re-typed the entire page. Typewriters only had one font.

The past two generations have been brought up with computers and cell phones. Most children nowadays can type and navigate computers with ease, and they don’t even recall how or when they learned it. Your cell phone is a now a personal computer.

When you visit Silicon Valley, the Computer History Museum is an attraction that will overload your circuits if you allow it. Remarkable museum! Check their website for new hours. Nice admission pricing at about $14 to $18.

Check the schedule for a concert at the nearby Shoreline Amphitheater.