A visit to the Computer History Museum

I spent an afternoon at the Computer History Museum the other day; a place I haven't visited since their remodel. The presentation is definitely an improved exhibit style tour. Also, a much larger collection with improved descriptions of the various artifacts.

I have to admit, I probably should have worn suspenders and a scruffy beard. That I knew the details of, and in fact worked with, so many of the artifacts in the building was a little scary. Yes, get off of my lawn...

This visit did remind me of another project I have in the backlog:

This is a Polaroid photograph of my desk, circa 1976. A picture of my first digital computer. A hand made Intel 8008 based computer.

This machine (video game) connected to a television for display and had various input and output devices:

• cassette tape
• joysticks
• address and data switches
• address and data lights
• and video output

It turns out I have a bundle of design and code papers for this machine (e.g. the blueprint on the world map at the back of the photo). And a few years ago, from those drawings and machine code, I re-animated the programs in a cycle-accurate machine emulator. Actually, a more accurate description would be to reverse-engineer some partial drawings and code to try to figure out what was intended and then to make an emulation. It was quite an experience to see the programs alive again.

I did the original emulation as a java/swing application. It is now time to port this over to javascript so anyone can run it in their browsers.

I'll scan a few of the drawings and post an update with the details and architecture of this machine. Makes for a good experiment at least.