[DigiBarn-News] 023: Happy New Year & Winter News
Bruce Damer
bdamer at digitalspace.com
Mon Jan 5 10:43:45 UTC 2009
Dear DigiBarn News subscribers (and welcome new subscribers who
checked the box on our contact form),
Here is your Winter 2008-09 newsletter (#23) and from all of us
humans, pigs, cats and vintage computers here at the DigiBarn
Computer Museum: Happy New Year and all the best for 2009!
The museum is packed up until the rains abate sometime in the spring.
Why do we pack it up for the winter (many of you ask)? While the barn
stays dry (lower floor has a good concrete floor and the roof is
good) there is a big rise in moisture levels during the rainy season.
So we pack all the systems on shelves in the dry rooms and I
carefully put away all the fragile display items like documentation.
One day with sufficient budget I would love to put in a raised floor
for the entire lower level and also put in proper walls and doors so
the collection could stay on display year round.
I would like to thanks both our set-up and pack-up crews for 2008 who
made this a much easier task for me.
Find this newsletter in HTML format at:
http://www.digibarn.com/history/newsletters/index.html#023
DETAILED NEWS FOLLOWS
******************
DIGIBARN WINTER 2008-09 NEWS
1. 2008-09 Project: Bill Pentz & the Sacramento State 8008 - Early
History of the Microcomputer
2. Digibarn to be featured in MacHeads the Movie (this week at MacWorld/SF!)
3. Steve Wozniak video tour of the DigiBarn finally posted!
4. DigiBarn and Bruce Damer on American Life TV show about Steve Wozniak
5. DigiBarn's LINC project featured in article in IEEE Annals of the
History of Computing
6. John Redant's Wikia version of the Digibarn/IEEE Bushy Tree of
computer evolution
7. More stories: Bana Witt (Jef Raskin & Early Apple), Mike Smithwick
(Distant Suns)
8. New book! On the Way to the Web, The Secret History of the
Internet and its Founders by Michael A. Banks
9. RetroMacCast features great Mac history, including the Digibarn!
10. Virtual Worlds Timeline project goes to Internet Archive
11. New Digibarn Radio Podcasts
12. Digibarn TV new features!
13. Thanks donors! Still looking for...
14. Archive of this and past Newsletters
15. Contacting us or Unsubscribing
******************
1. 2009 Project: Bill Pentz, the Sacramento State 8008 - Early
History of the Microcomputer
Bill Pentz contacted us over the summer of 2008 and after several
wonderful conversations and meetings here, he agreed to donate an
extraordinary artifact, the boards from an 8008 microcomputer system
built at California State Sacramento in 1972-73 with project partners
Tektronix and Intel. This system may well have been the very first
complete microcomputer with drivers for a hard disk, modem, audio
cassette, TTY, and Tektronix 4023 color display. The system had a
rudimentary disk operating system (DOS) and implementation of an
assembler in PROMs. It seems that the "Sac State 8008" informed the
subsequent Intel 8080, the basis for the home brew clubs and early
micros of 1975 and later. So along with the LINC (the 'first personal
computer' of 1962) we may well have the ur-microcomputer (of
1972ish). See interviews with bill and photos of the remaining
artifacts of the system at:
http://www.digibarn.com/stories/bill-pentz-story/index.html
Note: this will be a project throughout 2009 and we are working with
folks like Stan Mazor and others. This ties into early history of
microcomputers and influential people like Gary Kildall. Contact me
if you have knowledge of this formative period in microprocessor and
microcomputer history.
******************
2. Digibarn to be featured in MacHeads the Movie (premiere is this
week at MacWorld in San Francisco!)
Kobi Shely and his team from Chimp 65 Productions have pulled
together a super movie about the culture around the Macintosh and
Apple computer. It will soon be in theatrical and online release.
This film features both Bruce Damer and Galen Brandt in the Digibarn!
The film will premier on Wednesday January 7th, 2009 at the MacWorld
conference. Find Details at:
http://www.macheadsthemovie.com/
******************
3. Steve Wozniak video tour of the DigiBarn finally posted!
At long last we have posted Steve Wozniak's tour of the Digibarn shot
during his visit here in December 2006. Very very interesting
commentary from "the Woz" can be found by viewing this piece here:
http://www.digibarn.com/history/06-12-14-WozVisitShoot/index.html
along with audio interviews and photos. Thanks Al Lundell for
shooting and recording this!
******************
4. DigiBarn and Bruce Damer on American Life TV show about Steve Wozniak
On December 5th, 2008, AmericanLife TV aired an episode of Moments
that Changed Us all about Steve Wozniak. Shot over the summer here at
the DigiBarn, it features some great interviews with Digibarn
co-founder and curator Bruce Damer, along with the Woz and Len
Shustek and others. There is great historic footage from "back in the
day" in the 1970s too. See a five minute excerpt from this excellent show at:
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/movies/digibarn-tv/AmericanLifeWoz/index.html
(Thanks Al Lundell for getting great shots of the Apple II in action)
******************
5. DigiBarn's LINC project featured in article in IEEE Annals of the
History of Computing
The restoration of the LINC and the event we held at the Computer
History Museum as part of the Vintage Computer Festival back in
November of last year is now featured as a special article in IEEE
Annals of Computing History in the current issue. Finally the
Digibarn has made it into the "world of academic computing history"
(yes folks, there is an academic computing history world).
The LINC event is described at:
http://www.digibarn.com/history/07-11-04-VCF10-LINC/index.html
The LINC history and restoration are at:
http://www.digibarn.com/stories/linc/index.html
******************
6. John Redant's Wikia version of the Digibarn/IEEE Bushy Tree of
computer evolution
John Redant, creator of the original graphical "Bushy Tree" of
computing evolution which built on the original IEEE "Bushy Tree" at:
http://www.digibarn.com/stories/desktop-history/bushytree.html
continues to develop the tree of computing systems and software using
his Wikia. See it here and contribute!
http://bushytree.wikia.com/wiki/IEEE_Bushy_Tree
******************
7. More stories: Bana Witt (Jef Raskin & Early Apple), Mike Smithwick
(Distant Suns)
Some great stories, including Bana Witt's encounter with Jef Raskin
in the early days of Apple, and Mike Smithwick's story of Distant
Suns, one of the first and best known astronomical software packages,
is all at:
http://www.digibarn.com/stories/index.html
******************
8. New book! On the Way to the Web, The Secret History of the
Internet and its Founders by Michael A. Banks
Michael A. Banks has just published a fascinating new book on the
early history of the Internet and the personalities involve, read
more about it at:
http://www.digibarn.com/links/banks-michael-book.html
******************
9. The RetroMacCast features great Mac history, including the Digibarn!
Last year around the time of Macworld in January we were graced by a
visit from James and John of the RetroMacCast, a leading podcast on
the history of the Mac, Apple and much more. See the RetroMacCast and
sign up to their feed at:
http://retromaccast.ning.com/
And they produced a series of podcasts and images of their Digibarn visit here:
http://retromaccast.ning.com/main/search/search?q=digibarn
******************
10. Virtual Worlds Timeline project gets timeline on Dipity, goes to
Internet Archive
You may not know it but Digibarn Curator Bruce Damer is also a
pioneer of the virtual worlds and "avatar" medium and has taken it
upon himself to document the birth and evolution of that medium. He
has been working with Stanford and the Web History Center and a
number of other institutions to pull together the history of virtual
worlds (multi user spaces connected by networks). After contributing
125 early virtual worlds movies to the Internet Archive in San
Francisco he has now produced a curated timeline of virtual worlds
history using the new flash-based timeline software from Dipity as in
seren-Dipity (http://www.dipity.com). For more information about the
Virtual Worlds Timeline project see:
http://www.vwtimeline.org
******************
11. Digibarn Radio Podcasts
Digibarn radio is a podcast of voices from computing history.
Subscribe through the iTunes store at Apple for free, just enter the
term Digibarn Radio. You can also sign up directly at the Digibarn
Radio page at:
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/audio/index.html
or listen to these and our other pieces using regular MP3 audio
download players. There are some more podcasts to come (we know, its
been a while since we brought you the last one!).
******************
12. Digibarn TV: new features!
See several new video features on Digibarn TV, including all of the
"Woz" stories and much more at:
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/movies/index.html
******************
13. Thanks donors! Still looking for...
A lot of great donations came in since the summer and we would like
to thank all the many Friends of the Digibarn who contributed:
http://www.digibarn.com/friends/index.html
See the ever expanding collection at:
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/index.html
We are still looking for a bunch of good stuff and have updated our
"wish list" at:
http://www.digibarn.com/help/index.html
so check it out and see if you have anything there we are desperately
seeking (Apple 1, or weird prototypes, or a front bezel for a Lisa 1 anyone?).
******************
14. Archive of this and past Newsletters
You can find the archive of this and all past Digibarn Newsletters at:
http://www.digibarn.com/history/newsletters/index.html
******************
15. Contacting Us or Unsubscribing
The best way to contact us is by our web form at:
http://www.digibarn.com/forms/comment.html
the form has a new security feature so you have to enter that
automatically generated nonsense word, it prevents the posting robots
from finding us!
If you want to be unsubscribed please let us know through the form
above and provide the email address you are receiving this newsletter
on and it will be taken care of promptly. Digibarn News only comes
out two or three times per year so it shouldn't clog your inbox!
Alternatively, simply reply to this email with "unsubscribe" in the subject.
******************
Thats it for this newsletter, see you in the next one!
Bruce Damer, Curator
end DigiBarn news.
Bruce Damer
http://www.damer.com
Current Roles & Projects:
CEO, DigitalSpace - http://www.digitalspace.com
Curator, Digibarn Computer Museum - http://www.digibarn.com
CTO, Elixir Technologies - http://www.elixir.com
Co-founder, Contact Consortium & Avatars - http://www.ccon.org
Founder, Biota.org & EvoGrid - http://www.biota.org
Initiator, Virtual Worlds Timeline - http://www.vwtimeline.org
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