$n$ Reasons to Visit The Computer Museum | Computer Museum

For over 50 years, mathNEWS, the longstanding Faculty of Math undergraduate newsletter, has stood strong. Cited as “Waterloo’s Bastion of Erudite Thought”, it exists as a way for undergraduate students to express themselves. You can write anything from mathematical proofs to a list of favourite water fountains on campus. I’m particularly fond of profQUOTES, a section in which students compile notable quotes from their professors for other students to read. There is also the gridWORD crossword puzzle, and mathSOC cartoon comic strips that go over mathematical concepts found in undergraduate math and computer science courses in fun and creative ways.

I interviewed a former mathNEWS editor to describe mathNEWS in their own words: “There’s no formal mission statement other than to be a source of creative expression and community for people in math. We take submissions and publish (mostly) anything that won’t get us sued.”

I write the occasional article under my own pseudonym, usually about my thoughts and experiences as a student, with a fair share of silliness and seriousness. And as someone who’s extremely passionate about retro computing and started working at the Computer Museum as a result, I decided to write a humorous article about the Computer Museum: $n$ Reasons You Should Visit the Computer Museum.

The article is pasted below for you to read, but please do check out the rest of the wonderful articles in the 3^rd issue of the 161^st volume here.

Article Text

Hey everyone. It has come to my attention that some of you have not been informed of the crown jewel of campus. Who knew that such a rich history lay hidden in room 1316 of Davis Centre.

Established 16 years ago, the University of Waterloo Computer Museum existed to hoard computer artifacts. With over 5000 artifacts catalogued in their collection from as old as 1887, you could learn a lot about the history of math and computer science at University of Waterloo. So why should you come to the Computer Museum? Well, I've compiled a wonderful set of $n$ elements to persuade your arrival:

You can play Frogger on a real Commodore 64.
You can play Veggies vs. Undead (not to be confused with Plants vs. Zombies) on the same Commodore 64.
You can make PETSCII art of geese and all sorts of birds on, yes, you guessed it! The Commodore 64.
You can use BASIC to make a program to calculate if you're going to pass that spring linear algebra course on, yet again, the Commodore 64 (manual included!).
You can play Breakout on a real Atari (bet you thought i was going to say Commodore...).
You can watch Bad Apple!! on the NABU PC.
You can play Lemmings on a Mini Macintosh SE.
You can play Zork on the IBM PS/2, but beware the sinister grue...
You can watch the montage of Utilities, a film filmed in the beautiful heart of our darling MC.
You can look at the diorama of our darling MC red room.
You can go *click clack* on a typewriter! Type your Discord handle down and make some friends like it's the 1800s.
You can read vintage computery books.
You can talk to vintage computery people on Curator Days (Tuesdays) when the museum curators are in.
You can do the sticker poll.
You can do the virtual red room experience.
You can do the self-guided tour and hunt down exhibits around campus.
Guys I'm breaking the pattern but it's literally free. You can do all of this for the grand total of $0.00 and you can sum that up on the vintage class 3 Burroughs adding machine that they have.

This term, the Computer Museum is open from roughly 8:30am–4:30pm, room 1316 on Davis Centre. That's right by the entrance by the transit station. You may as well drop by if it's open.