Support builds for Computer Museum

Electronic News, Nov 11, 1996

The proposed San Francisco Computer Museum last week received industry and political support for establishing the museum in the 90,000-square-foot Brooks Hall in downtown San Francisco. The museum also received a proposed opening date of sometime in the fall of 1997.

The president of the museum foundation, Fred Davis, and executive director of the Computer History Association of California (CHAC) and VP of the museum foundation Kip Crosby formed the non-profit organization to build a world-class computer museum in the heart of San Francisco.

Mr. Crosby said the need for a new museum was to "preserve historical truth. Individuals, companies, special-interest groups and politicians all have distinct agendas in defining the history of the most important technology of the twentieth century. When history gets distorted, the wrong people can be given credit for achievements, but more importantly, myths emerge that contaminate public opinion about computers and the ways they affect our lives."

Mr. Crosby added that "computing in California started in the mid-1940s and had spawned a major industry by the mid-1960s. The pioneers, many of them still practicing engineers, are elderly; they are eager to contribute their statements to the public record. We must act quickly to record these oral and video histories before these irreplaceable sources vanish."

San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown commented "the time is clearly right for such a museum, with its related educational opportunities, and San Francisco is clearly the place for it."

The museum will have three areas. The first area will be dedicated to displaying exhibits about computing history including CHAC's current collection featuring an 1870 Brunsviga mechanical calculator from Sweden, samples of every original Apple machine and a Xerox Alto. The second area will be a public lab for hands-on exploration of experimental software, games, virtual reality, simulations and new communications programs. The third area of the computer museum will feature computer and multimedia art.

"There is no institution in a major metropolitan center, known to me, that permanently displays computer and multimedia art," said Mr. Davis. "People need a place to see this art and how to understand it. San Francisco, as an emerging hub of new media art and technology, is obliviously the right place."

Representatives of the Computer Museum in Boston recently announced plans to open a similar institution in Silicon Valley. Some of the potential exhibits are now being stored at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., the home of the NASA Ames Research Center.

In addition, the Technology Museum of Innovation is building a new home in downtown San Jose, Calif., around the corner from its present facility. The Tech Museum is predominately focused on semiconductor technology, and is not expected to work at cross-purposes with the two proposed computer museums in the San Francisco Bay Area.