Learn to "read" objects from UWaterloo's rich computer history and help design an exhibit!
In July 2017, we're putting some of our treasures on display as part of a celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Faculty of Mathematics.
On July 4, Eric Manning, Scott Campbell and Trevor Grove will be talking as part of Hardware Day (videos will be added here). Immediately after the talks, we'll open the exhibit in the Math and Computer building, room 3011. Until July 14 you can come and see:
Normal visiting hours are 10am to noon, but contact us at computer.museum@uwaterloo.ca to arrange a tour.
If you have any donations, feel free to drop them off as well or get in touch.
We'll upload some photos as the exhibit unfolds!
The Faculty of Mathematics held a pancake breakfast in Mathematics 3 on September 30, 2017 to celebrate 50 years of Mathematics, and we set up some small tables with recent acquisitions and old favourites.
Attention all Vintage Computer enthusiasts!
On Thursday August 10th, the UW Computer Museum will be hosting a "Hardware Day" in which we will bring out a number of older computers and see which, if any, we can get running.
We will be working in DC1316 (the Computer Museum office) and DC2314 which we have booked for the day. You are welcome to join us to help or just see what's going on!
Timing: 10am setup, 4pm tear down.
Some of the machines we're planning to work on:
- Original Macintosh Plus/SE
- Apple ][ plus
- original IBM PC/XT
- Panasonic Executive Partner
- DEC PDP 11/04
- TRS-80 Model II
- an old Pong game
Our second Hardware Day of 2023 will be Saturday, October 28, 10am to 4pm in DC2585.
We'll be testing old hardware to get some of it running. Come join the fun! You can help or bring your own retro computer to show off, or just see what's up.
The Computer Museum will be hosting a hands-on event with a variety of old computers and artifacts.
We will have a guest speaker, Devon Merner, who will talk about how the iMac G5 was used in the development of the Xbox. Includes live demo. Devon's talk starts at 2pm.
Mark your calendars!
More details to come.
The Computer Museum will be open on Saturday June 1, 2024 to welcome visiting alumni.
The Computer Museum will host its next Hardware Day on Tuesday June 18th, 2024 from 10am to 4pm in the Davis Centre "Fish Bowl" (DC1301)
We plan to bring out the DEC pdp11/04 and the Waterloo Computer On Wheels ("the WatCOW"), another PDP 11 system that was used for outreach in the 1970s. We will also have a variety of portable computers and some of our functioning vintage systems (Commodore 64, Apple II, Macintosh, TRS-80)
Listen to Don Cowan describe the WatCOW (YouTube Link) at the Math Faculty 50th celebration
Speaker: At noon, Lanny Cox will present the PiDP-8 and PiDP-11 systems - a pair of scale-model simulations of DEC minis running on a Raspberry Pi using the SimH simulator. His talk is entitled "My Many Mini-Minicomputers: Peeking Inside The PiDP".
"Lanny Cox is a lifelong computer enthusiast with great interest in the DEC minicomputers of the 1960s and '70s, but not much space to store them, or extra spare change to pay the power bill. Luckily, though these computers are no longer in production, a dedicated community of engineers have spent decades preserving their hardware and software and making their computing environments available to a new generation of users.
Join us for an exploration of DEC's significance in computing history, a look at modern efforts to make computers like the PDP-8 and PDP-11 accessible to home users, and perhaps even a scale-model demonstration of these iconic machines."
All are welcome!
On September 28, 2024, the Computer Museum will be attending the AI Encounters: Past, Present, and Future event at the Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum.
Our display will showcase examples of AI from the late 20th century, running on retro computers that visitors can interact with.
The Computer Museum is having an Open House on October 26, 2024 in DC 1301.