Computer Museum - Curator of Telephone Museum Curtis Anderson visits

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L-R David Larsen KK4WW, Curtis Anderson N4ON

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Curtis Anderson N4ON curator of the Telephone Museum in Richmond Virginia made his second visit to our musuem.  We had a great time talking about the vintage computers and sharing stories of our collecting. Curtis made a video of the museum displays and we will post it when available. We made   plans for Curtis to join our display of vintage computers at Frostfest in Richmond Va on February 7th 2015. I invite you to come take a look at the fest.

Crutis inspecting Osborne computer

This display has some great vintage computers, MARK-8,Intellect-4,Heathkit H-8, MMD-1,Byteshop,Sinclair, Osborne, Intel 1972 Development system and more. Listen to the link below for me giving a tour of this display.


Audio description of computers in this cabinet "CLICK"

Autonetics 1958 transistor computer
Oldest Transistor computer in the world

This computer is the 1958 Autonetics Recomp 2 serial number 003 - perhaps the very oldest transistor computer in the world.  I worked the Summer of 1960 at Autonetics on the Minute Man 1 ICBM computer -  what an experience 55 years ago - Golly I must be getting older that was a long time ago.

1916 " How to build your own Spark Gap Transmitter

This is very old 1916 - how to build your own wireless transceiver. Curtis brought this for me to look over. It is how to build your very own Spark Gap transmitter and reciever --- & you don't need a license to operate ( that was operate in 1916 of course).

I will try to publish the whole manuscript here in the future.

PDP- 10 Digital Equipment Corporation

PDP-11/10
I have only one minicomputer in the museum - this gives me a way to compare the old mini's to microcomputers. I had a good number of minicomputers in the museum warehouse but have passed most of them on to other collectors and museums. Give a listen to my description just below.

Audio discussion about this PDP-10 "CLICK" 

Amateur Radio Station N4USA in museum

Amateur Radio station N4USA is operational with beam antenna on the roof. The station works good from museum. Curtis and I also made some radio contact from N4USA at Chantilly Farm.



More info about N4USA  in the museum "CLICK"


During Curtis's visit we had a good time making audio recordings & videos about historic events. A sample is below. Good stuff for history buffs.
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Curtis is curator of the Telephone Museum in Richmond VA and below tells a few short stories about Alexander Bell and the invention of the telephone.



 Bell invents the telephone on way to making hearing device for hard of hearing.



  Bell get telephone patent ahead of other inventor by chance.



  Alexander Bell demonstrates wireless transmission of voice 4 years after inventing the telephone.

A short video of history from the Transistor to the Microcomputer by Curtis N4ON
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David Larsen

Thank you for the visit Curtis - it was fun to talk about vintage computers and old times during our careers 30 or more years ago.

           .^{"by David Larsen"  KK4WW Computer Collector Historian} 

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