Date   : Mon, 17 Oct 2005 23:40:43 +0100
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Re: Computer Museum gets cash from Gates

David Hunt wrote:
> I remember a while back, we were discussing getting some cash to pay fo
r
> hosting etc. for our loads of retro stuff.
> 
> Check out this link <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4350972.stm>
> 
> The "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation" has given £8.5 million to the
> "Computer History Museum" in Los Angeles, USA.
> 
> Perhaps we should e-mail Bill and ask for some cash.
> 
> I visited this Museum in 2003 after attending Micro$oft's PDC 2003 - go
sh
> was Longhorn that long ago... ooops Vista, um Bill where is it?
> 
> There was hardly any Acorn stuff there. They had the guts of an Atom an
d the
> guts of a BBC B (a US one with the extra shielding and maxed out
> motherboard) 

Sellam Ismail's been pestering me for a Domesday system for a while; it 
woudn't surprise me if it'll end up there if I can find one (actually, 
finding one is less of an issue - shipping it, particularly considering 
how fragile the players are, is another matter)

> There was total saturation of IBM and Apple, but not hardly any Compaq,
 they
> had a nasty looking Deskpro 286 and no other Compaq desktops. Anyhows,
I
> found the whole experience rather clinical, perhaps painful. Hardly any
thing
> worked and you weren't allowed to "play" with the interesting stuff. 

I believe they're a lot better these days. It seems like there's been a 
scramble in recent years to save stuff from the crusher, but only now is 
anywhere starting to worry about what to actually *do* with it.

 > I am sure the Brits can do a better job, despite the lack of £80
 > million...

It's funny, the problem here is there's a lack of anyone prepared to 
give up any space for such a museum; the funding's not so much of an 
issue (although it'd be a piece here and there, there doesn't seem to be 
a shortage of companies willing to pitch in)

Nobody wants to give up space for a museum in this country when they 
could get several million for it as building land, and the Government 
seem to be going out of their way to shut museums down in favour of 
building rabbit hutches for people to live in :-(

One interesting thing about such a museum here is that there's a *lot* 
more diversity in available hardware compared to the US. A lot of the US 
hardware was sold in the UK, along with a huge number of home-grown 
manufacturers, plus all sorts crept overseas from the rest of Europe.

cheers

Jules