Computer Museum of America - Grand opining July 20,2019

Computer Museum ofAmerica

The Grand Opening 

Computer Museum of America
 Roswell, Georgia - July 20,2019
Up Dated 10/5/2020

Our entire historical microcomputer collection (Bugbook Microcomputer Museum) of 13,000 items was acquired by the Computer Museum of America. David Larsen

See videos of displays 10/5/2020 "CLICK"

Click photo to enlarge.

David and Gaynell Larsen during the
Grand Opening of the Museum
at the  Apollo 11 Moon lander replica.  

The grand opening of the Computer Museum of America (CMoA) was an awesome event. The date was picked to to be the same day of the year on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing - July 20th.  The museum founder,  Lonnie Mimms,  is a long time collector of computers and  user of  computers. The museum has so many exciting attributes & amenities it is hard for me to give proper credit in a short blog. Take a look at the Facebook Page here. Look here of wonderful photos of the opening.

Lonnie Mimms museum
founder giving introduction
to the museum at the
Fundraiser event July 13th

From Computer Museum of America - Web Site
"After 40 years of collecting technology and four years of testing temporary exhibitions, the Computer Museum of America (CMoA) will be opening the doors to its new permanent home on July 20,2019. The CMoA will preserve the achievements of the digital revolution to educate, entertain and inspire the innovator in us all."

Karin Mimms
Vice President of the
Museum

Karin Mimms - Vice President speaks about goals of museum and introducing special guests at the Friday ( 7/13/19) Fundraiser  Event.
The opening week was in three parts - The Fundraiser Event on Friday the 13th, the Opening Celebration on Wednesday the 17th and the Grand opening for the public on Saturday the 20th.

David Larsen with NASA Astronaut
Dr. Sandra Magnus

NASA Astronaut Dr. Sandra Magnus was a very inspirational speaker about how her dream as a young person led to become a NASA Astronaut. Dr. Magnus made several shuttle flights and spent time on the Space Station. She is a wonderful enthusiastic advocate encouraging young people to pursue a career in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math).  One the museums mission is to inspire young folks to develop an interest & career in the the field of science (STEM).

Cray 1-M/2300

The museum has a wonderful representation of computers and technology items on display with great information about each artifact. The museum has one of the largest collection of Cray Super Computers in the world.

Cray 1 Serial #13
1979

This information came in the shipping container with the Cray-A.

Amazing supercomputer at that time.

50 miles of wire
32,000 circuit cards
250,000 integrated circuits.
Much more click photo to read.

Digital Equipment Corporation
"PDP-12"

The museum displays an excellent selection of Super Computers, Minicomputers, Microcomputers and some components of historical mainframe computers.  This just the Grand Opening - there are 250,000 artifacts in the archives and the number of artifacts on display will be growing and rotating on a regular basis.

David Larsen
with Mark 8 Computer

The museum has a good representation of Microcomputers on display - you can see some of them in the photos here.

The "Mark 8" computer in this photo was designed by my colleague Dr. Jon Titus.  Jon published his design in "Radio Electronics" magazine in the May, June and July issues 1974. Jon is given credit for being the one of the first to build an operational computer using a microprocessor chip and showing others how to build the computer.

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Dr. Cyndy Moya  with
 Lonnie Mimms 

The museum had a large number of interesting visitors for the Grand Opening day.  Here is Dr. Cyndy Moya, Collections Manager at the "Living Computer Museum" in Seattle, Washington. On the right is Lonnie Mimms, Founder of the "Computer Museum of America". The "Living Computer Museum" founder was Paul Allen.

IBM  card sorter, collator etc

Some items on display from the old mainframe computers. Here are peripheral devices from the 1950/60s . A  key card punch, collator, card sorter and more.






Here is my audio description of the aswsome events during the Inaugural Opening of the Museum

My son, David Larsen Jr.,
at the July 13th Fundraiser

Visiting the CMoA and Roswell, GA for the the week of July 13- 20th Grand opening events for the museum was a very rewarding experience for Gaynell and I. To be with Lonnie and Karin Mimms and all the people that helped make Lonni's vision of a great computer and technology museum a reality was awesome.

This is just a start and the museum will be constantly evolving and expanding.  Lonnie has more than 250,000 technology artifacts in the collection with more being added every week. The museum has a second level floor of about 120,000 sq ft for expansion and more could be added - lots of room for expansion.

Museum Entrance at
5000 Commerce Parkway.

When in the Roswell, Georgia area,  I highly recommend a visit to the museum (About 20 miles north of Atlanta). The CMoA is open on Saturdays 10 to 5 PM and on Sunday 12 to 5 PM. Here is how to get there - Google Map. 

David Larsen
 Blog Author

"by David Larsen"  Board member of  "Computer Museum of America", Chantilly Farm owner, Computer Historian, and amateur radio operator -KK4WW   & N4USA .  I work out of one of the Tiny Homes at Chantilly Farm. A great place to work if you like the to be out in nature. I am 81 and ready to sell Chantilly Farm - I have a few more  projects I would like to do - if you have an interest to know more give me a call. 540 392  2392.

The "Bugbook"
Bugs

I am still collecting vintage computers & receive a calls very often about an old computer. Getting older and time to sell my chantillyfarm  -- Give me a call for information..