Museum of Science, Boston

Exhibit [Return to listing page]

Part of the merger between the Museum of Science and the Computer Museum, this exhibit highlights the history of computing and uses historical artifacts to illustrate how human needs have led to new technologies.

The exhibition is divided into several theme areas: computer prehistory, World War II, business machines, personal computers, the Internet, and the 21st century.

See ancient Greek calculators and a Chinese abacus, and learn about plans for a fully-functional mechanical computer in the 1840s that was never built.

Parts of Whirlwind I, MIT' s first digital computer, are on display, along with archival video of the machine in use. The Whirlwind was one of many new technologies that reflect the modern, digital electronic computing developed under the pressing circumstances of World War II.

This exhibit also includes a recreation of the control room of a Universal Automatic (UNIVAC I) computer. With the introduction of this machine, computers were no longer part of the secret world of the military; they emerged as business machines. They tracked inventory, processed payroll checks, and sorted information. Also on view is a collection of early personal computers, including an Altair 8800, Apple II, IBM PC, and Macintosh.

See how the Internet has fundamentally changed the way we use computers, making them the most powerful information tools in human history. A highlight of this area is a computer station where you can select websites from all over the planet, and see the actual route your request takes on a large projected globe.

Looking ahead, the computers that we carry around with us, like PDAs and web-enabled cell phones, promise to make us even more reliant on these machines, which seem to keep getting smaller. Learn how nanotechnology is making computers so small that molecular machines could now be within reach.