Since I have a lot of crap going on in my life right now, I decided it would be a good time to cheer myself up by visiting a place in my hometown called the “American Computer Museum”. Somehow I’d never actually gone there before, which is sort of shocking when you consider the types of things I saw there:
Old phones!
Old switchboard!
There is no way this thing isn’t a Tricorder.
Replica of the Antikythera mechanism; this looked so much cooler in real life than it does in the picture.
This is a calculator.
And so is this, and I want both of them so I can figure out how they work.
Arithmometer, aka mechanical calculator. Did I mention that I want this also?
Actual letter written by Ada Lovelace, I may have possibly fangirled over this for about ten minutes. (Directly underneath was a first edition copy of Charles Babbage’s autobiography, complete with technical drawings of the difference engine– cue similar fangirling.)
I decided that the time was right to present the most ridiculous picture of me ever taken. This, my friends, is the Pike-o-graph. Eh? Eh?
This watch went to the moon. I now find myself endlessly curious about the effects of low gravity on the movement. *mental note to look into this later*
This thing was full of blinking lights and made clickety-clackety noises if you got close to it. I have decided that I must have one. (You know, like I decided with basically everything else in this museum.)
A room full of computers, including at least a couple Commodore 64s. <3 The big red cabinet in the corner is Computer Space, the first commercially sold video game.
ENIAC…
UNIVAC…
8 megabytes of storage on this baby! Never mind the fact that it’s like twice as big as me. Seriously, you can see my reflection.
There was so much stuff here; it was fantastic. Also I bought a book called “The Victorian Internet”. With a title like that, you just can’t go wrong.
That is the most awesome museum ever, omg. I want to go there. o_o
That third item is actually the original Communicator from Star Trek TOS. I recognize it from the Star Trek Technical Manual I had as a kid.
/looksaround
OK, I still have it. We all have our obsessions …
Okay Pike calm down. You can’t ask Santa for all of those.
What would all the other geek boy and girls do?
Anyways, just wanted to say thanks for making my day with the Pike-ograff!
A mechanical clock works on potential energy in springs, and this motion will not be directly influenced by gravity. The clock will not notice any difference. However, because of the relativistic effect of the gravitational field, to us here on Earth, the clock will be ticking a little faster. To itself, though, it’s ticking perfectly fine; it’s time itself that’s different.
Also, the Pike-o-graph? I lul’d xD
That’s awesome! I suppose living in Montana doesn’t have a ton of perks, but the American Computer Museum has to be one of them.
The “clickety-clackety” computer, the IBM 1620, has a hallowed place in history for me – my mother learned to program on one! Without the 1620, I might not be a software engineer today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1620 is full of neat details about one of my favorite dinosaurs.
Is it bad that I was able to identify a lot of those computers and such by sight, even though they all came out before I was born?
Also, Regarding the picture of the Pike-o-Graph
Pike’s Mom: “That’s about you in a nutshell.”
Me: “You’re silly, Pike’s Mom. That’s clearly a Gramaphone cone.”
Pike: “stfu. >.>”
No alethiometer fail.
@ Grimmtooth – I *knew* it was from Star Trek: TOS! I just knew it!
@ ‘zilla – regarding the watch, that was my suspicion but I wanted it confirmed. Thanks for doing so! =D
@ Nel – That is awesome! I would love to be able to program one of those.
@ Aifel – Once I saw a picture of a pocket watch modded into an alethiometer. It was awesome.
Totally off topic, Pike, but have you seen the new Steam Punk-ish book by Quirk Classics? It’s a redo of Leo Tolstoy’s classic, Anna Karenina, but with Androids, Dirigibles, Steam-powered technology, and clockwork creations. You should definitely pick it up. 🙂
almost forgot. It’s called Android Karenina. My bad. lol
you think alot like me pike. i would be asking for a job there to look at the couculators.