A great time last night at the Computer History Museum! Some of the gang came down from San Francisco, so I didn’t feel completely out of place. Anytime I’m at these Silicon Valley events, I feel a little lost. There was a photo booth, so we all took some pictures in front of a very pink background. Photos: here. Here’s part of my review of the museum:

It was not only the perfect venue for a gathering to celebrate my love of all things geeky, but it has inspired a change in my life. From this point forward, I have added a new requirement for future boyfriend[s]: Must be able to appreciate the Computer History Museum. Take note – hah!

The lower level features an awesome room called “Visible Storage,” where you’ll find unique artifacts, from mechanical calculators and old school keyboards to the vintage PCs, historical firsts and exotic supercomputers. One of the docents pointed out the Honeywell 316, a $10K computer to assist housewives of the late 60s in the kitchen, assuming that they took a course to read binary. Very amusing.

This room is also where you will find the PDP-1 [Programmed Data Processor-1] Restoration Project. Got to meet Peter Samson, one of the original students/hackers/programmers who got to work with it back in the day.

I didn’t look closely at everything. I must return. Most likely, a weekend since their hours during the weekdays aren’t very long. There is a lot to see and the hour or so spent looking around was not enough. The next time, I will definitely take a docent-led tour. Lots of nifty info for a computer geek and non [me!] alike!