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..

30 ton Vintage Computer collection moves to the "Computer Museum of America".

Apple-1 computer 

Bugbooks

It was a 45 years effort and a great hobby to build my "Bugbook Historical Microcomputer" collection. The Collection was acquired by the Computer Museum of America and in February of this year (2016) it was all packed up and sent to the CMoA in Roswell, Georgia. A crew of 6 took  10 days to pack the 10,000 items. When the trucks were loaded one of them could not make it up the hill from the warehouse and I had to call a tow truck to help. Several tons had to be taken off that truck to keep it in the legal weight for the road. When the trucks weighted  for the trip they were loaded with more then 30 tons of microcomputer artifacts. 

David Larsen, Curator of the Bugbook Computer Museum

Here is a news story about the shipment and moving the collection. "CLICK" 

David Larsen

It is a real pleasure to have the collection now reside with a museum that is growing and can give good visibility our 45 year effort to build the collection. I am not sad to see the computer artifacts leave Floyd, Virginia and look forward to working with Lonnie Mimm's as a board member of his "Computer Museum of America".

 "by David Larsen" KK4WW Computer Collector / Historian 

   

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Vintage Computer Festival Southeast 4.0 - I will be attending April 2/3 2016 Roswell, Georgia

VCFSE 4.0

Bugbooks

Hope to see you at the VCFSE 4.0. I will be speaking about my 45 years as a collector of historical microcomputer artifacts. The presentation will  include information  about how I acquired the more then 10,000 items in my Bugbook Computer Museum collection including 4 original Apple-1 computers. The entire collection ( I am retaining 2 of my Apple-1 computers) has recently been moved to the Computer Museum of America in Roswell, GA. I will also speak about my years with the "Blacksburg Group" in the 70's & 80's and the pioneering work in the microcomputer revolution of the group. In addition to myself the "Blacksburg Group" included Jon Titus (Mark-8 designer), Chris Titus, and Peter Rony. The group got its start with the publication of the "BugBooks" 
(1974)

Photo from past VCFSE

More links to information about the VCFSE 4.0

Facebook 

Computer Museum of  America

Vintage Computer Federation 

Atlanta Historical Computing Society

Twitter

one more link - Roswell Patch

David Larsen

I am excited to be attending my first Vintage Computer Festival South East, sharing my computer collecting stories with fellow  Vintage computer peers. I doubt if I will be the oldest person there however I will be in good company with anyone older - I am 77 and my start with computers was 59 years ago in 1957. The Navy sent me to school in St. Paul, MN to learn about the big Remington Rand Univac computers. I have always been a hoarder and collector of old electronic devices however I claim 1971 as my start of collecting microcomputer memorabilia. 45 years ago in 1971 the first commercial microprocessor chip (4004) came to market. 

 ^{"by David Larsen"  KK4WW Computer Collector Historian}     Send Message    Like us on Facebook  My Blog about hometown Floyd VA

Vintage Apple-1 computer purchase letter more than 20 years old found

Bugbooks

I lost track of the original letter from Adam Schoolsky describing my purchase of his Apple-1 computer.  Adam received his Apple-1 40 years ago as a gift from Steve Wozniak (Woz). Adam was a friend of Woz and helped with the Zaltair prank at the first West Cost Computer Faire in 1977.

The move of the Bugbook Computer Museum vintage computer collection to the Computer Museum of America has given me an opportunity to look into the 40 plus cartons of papers and teaching material I packed up when retiring from my faculty position at Virginia Tech.  My last year of teaching "Instrumentation and Automation" was 1996.  I was on sabbatical leave for two more years doing various research projects and retired in 1998 with 31 years as a tenured faculty member.

It is hard for me think back when I actually started to collect vintage electronic items. The reality is I was collecting some interesting vintage electronic items even in my college days at Oregon State University.  Wow that was 1959 to 1963. However I always give the date of starting my serious collection as 1971 - the same year as the introduction of the first commercial microprocessor. I had been teaching Analog and Digital Electronics for 4 years at that time and the microprocessor changed my life big time just like many other people involved in electronic technology.


Click on photo to enlarge

Adam Schoolsky Apple-1 letter

Apple-1 computer letter.

I have looked and wonderrd for years where this original letter from Adam Schoolsky was and I found it in with a box of teaching notes from a Digital Electronics class packed away for 20 years. Why and how it was in there? I don't know however I am glad to have and add it to the items with my original Schoolsky Apple-1 computer purchased in 1994.

Coming in April the Vintage Computer Fair SE  

 in Roswell, GA. I will be giving a little talk about my vintage computer collection - hope to see you there.

David Larsen 1969

The items in storage from my teaching days at Virginia Tech (VT) are mostly old teaching notes, photo slides, overhead projector lecture transparencies,  old photographs, some really interesting letters and lot of memorabilia.

Here is photo of me teaching computer interfacing using a PDP8-L minicomputer and overhead projector in about 1969. I think this very computer and teletype is the one I shipped to the Computer Museum of America.  Most old equipment was just tossed into the junk heap when it was well past being useful to anyone and I did a little dumpster diving and salvaged the system.

Just reminiscing in looking at this photo reminds me  how much technology has changed. I was using an overhead projector and now we would use a projector and power point presentation that could include video and audio and even a live feed from the internet. WOW it would have been fun to teach using current technology however we did just fine with what was available at that time.

David Larsen's VT office packed 20 years ago

This is just 25 of the 45 boxes from my old VT office packed 20 years ago. How could I have so much stuff in one office. I guess I was lucky to have a big office with lots of book shelves. Much of the material in these boxes is teaching notes,letters - (we did not have email for most of my tenure at VT), books and reference material and was stored in my teaching laboratory and not actually in my office.

So far I have only looked though 6 boxes and the best surprise so far is the Adam Schoolsky letter. I know there are other jewels in these boxes. I report more later.

Schoolsky Apple-1 computer

Here is another original hand written letter shipped with the Schoolsky Apple-1 computer.

Adam Schoolsky also gave me a mint copy of the 40 page  1977 West Coast Computer Faire program. Very interesting reading "View Click" 
- look at the price of memory and other computer items in 1977.

Bugbooks 1 & 2

One more nice find in the office box's was this set of first edition Bugbooks 1 & 2. We self published these and had them printed in our hometown of Blackburg, Virginia 1974.

This is where the name for my museum came from - these early Bugbooks.

David Larsen

I will continue to look though all 45 box's and making an inventory - then I will know if any item worth while is in one of the box's.

 ^{"by David Larsen"  KK4WW Computer Collector Historian}     Send Message    Like us on Facebook  My Blog about hometown Floyd VA

Vintage computers - The Hunt for Apple-1 computers - 2/29/16

(Updated 2/29/16) I am ask many times how did you build your computer collection.  A real help for

Apple 1 Computer

Bugbooks

the microcomputer memorabilia collection was - I was teaching  digital electronics and computer automation & instrumentation before the first Intel microprocessor was introduced in 1971.  My period of teaching at Virginia Tech was 1967 to 1998.  A good part of the answer is "I was at the right place at the right time".  The majority of my collection was acquired  from 1975 to 1995. During that time the computers were generally of little or no value and the owners just dumped them in the trash. Many were happy to find a crazy guy like me that actually wanted to keep an old computer.

I advertised in various publications for most of the 45 years . The one that brought in the most calls was a small classified ad in "Computer Shopper". The ad was very simple and looked like this - Wanted pre1980 microcomputers for historical collection". Over the years I recieved 1000's of calls or offers for microcomputers. I continue to run an ad in the Ham Radio magazine "QST"

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Here are a few of the responses with offers for Apple-1 computers.

Craig Solomonson offered me this Apple-1 computer July 1996 for his price of less then $40,000.

WOW I sure missed a computer that made the big time - Auction at Breker Nov 28, 2010 - Yes, Italian collector Marco Boglione paid $212,000 for a 34-year-old Apple-1

Click on photos to enlarge

Craig Solomonson  Apple 1

The information below is from the Apple-1 Registry 

NTI logo. This computer was first Frank Anderson. 

Next it was  purchased from Frank Anderson, an electronic dealer in Great Falls, Montana by Craig Solomonson for MECC.  Craig reports that this computer was sold by Jobs and shipped from his parents address. Woz seemed a bit confused when Craig showed him the invoice and asked about it. He said "Not sold by us, although Job's may have sold it without telling me." 

• Sold by Craig to Jesse Sackman in California
• $50,000 unit sold in Ebay auction 320447681957, late in 2009
• This is the unit auctioned by Christies in London for 133,250 pounds in November of 2010 to Italian businessman and private collector Marco Boglione

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During the 80/90's I was offered about 10 Apple-1 computers and managed to purchase 4 of them. One offer was for me trade a new automobile van for his computer. This was a reasonable offer but I declined the purchase at the time as too complex. I heard later that some other collector made this trade.


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Schoolsky Apple 1

Schoolsky Apple-1 Computer

I did purchase this Apple-1 Microcomputer from Adam Schoolsky & you can see in the letter many other nice items as well. Here is a video about this computer in our "Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum" 'CLICK'

Schoolsky's Apple-1  came in a box like these shown in Job's bedroom. The box has Woz written on the top. I will never know but Schoolsky's computer may be in this photo.

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This computer has been made fully operational by Win Heagy in late 2015 and has been passed on to the Lonnie Mimms collection at the Computer Museum of America.

Click on photos to enlarge

Forest Duston phone log

Forest Duston Apple-1 computer 

I  keep a  phone log of all the calls about computers that are available. The photo to the left is copy of call from Forest and he told me he had 2 Apple 1 computers. I was skeptical about that however over the next year I found it was true and purchased both of them. It was fortunate for me and he got his price. 

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Click image to enlarge

Snyder Apple-1 computer 

This Apple-1 computer offered to me by the law firm for $15,000 was a great offer. Unfortunately at that time I was not able to make  a deal.  I don't know who  ended up with Apple-1. The computer had an interesting history and original letter from Steve Jobs with it.  Even lawyers seemed find my little classified advertising.  

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Apple 1 purchase from John Burch

Here is a video of  Apple-1 I purchased  from John Burch in the mid 90's. It was a simple deal - he told me most of the collectors wanted him to just give the computer to them. He gave me a price and we had a deal.





Video of this computer has had nearly 250,000 views during the past 5 years "CLICK here to see video"


Click on photos to enlarge

David Larsen working on Apple 1

This is one of the finest examples of an Apple-1 computer and in January 2016 was passed on to the Lonnie Mimms collection at the Computer Museum of America in Roswell, Georgia.

Here I am working on the "John Burch"  Apple-1 computer.

Apple 1 computer documentaion

I received lots of great original documentation with this computer.

Here is a little tidbit about Steve Jobs house and where and who designed the Apple-1 & 2 .
(Steve Wozniak designed them independent on his own)

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My 45 years of collecting effort resulting of an inventory of more then 10,000 microcomputer memorabilia items in moving to Lonnie Mimms Computer Museum of America. All the items have been packed. Packing took 10 days with a crew of 3 to 6 and as I write this update the last 500 or more packed boxes will leave the Bugbook Computer Museum warehouse today.  2/29/16

David Larsen

The hunt for computers during the past 45 years has been fun. Now my family and friends ask - What are you going to do with them. We have inventored more then 10,000 items in our collection and still have more to add to the data base - lots of computers and memorabilia. I have set up a small museum and hope to have an endowed museum here in Floyd Va - place  the computers with the other museums or with serious collectors before I move to Heaven. I am 75 now and only have 25 more years to go - Any ideas for my collection - give me a call.

I am 77+ as I update this blog and happy to say I have found a wonderful home for the 45 years of collecting. It is a delight to be working with Lonnie Mimms and his Computer Museum of America in Roswell, Georgia. Dave

 ^{"by David Larsen"  KK4WW Computer Collector Historian}     Send Message    Like us on Facebook  My Blog about hometown Floyd VA

Apple-1 computer delivered to the Computer Museum of America 2/16/16

Bugbooks

John Burch - Apple-1
Computer 

My wife Gaynell and I visited Lonnie Mimms at his Computer Museum of America in Roswell, Georgia during the weekend of January 15/16 2016.  Lonnie and I made the final arrangements for the transfer of my entire vintage computer collection to his museum. We did take a few computers with us in the car and one was the John Burch Apple-1. I purchased this computer from John Burch about 22 years ago. Mr. Burch told me he had purchased his Apple-1 computer from Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs out of the trunk of their car at a computer meeting. I had no reason to doubt this story, however in later years when I tried to contact him for more details about how he purchased the computer he had passed away. This is a good lesson "Do it NOW" unfortunately these first time vintage computer owners are getting old and passing on. This is a good reason for me to pass on my collection while I can still give information about the collection and how I acquired all these vintage machines.

John Burch Apple-1 Computer 

Video of delivery to Lonnie Mimms - The John Burch Apple-1 "CLICK"

L-R Lonnie Mimms - David Larsen

Video of all the computers delivered to the Computer Museum of America during first visit January 16, 2016. "CLICK"





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If you have not visited the Computer Museum of America and the Apple Popup museum here is a very good reason to visit Roswell, Georgia.

Vintage Computer Festival Southeast April 2/3, 2016. 
Take a look "CLICK"
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Apple Popup museum 

Lonnie gave Gaynell and I a wonderful and educational tour of his Apple Popup museum. This was our first visit and the displays are very impressive and informative.

Steve Wozniak (Woz) had the spark with his Apple-1 computer to excite Steve Jobs to start the Apple Company with Woz and Ron Wayne.  Very few people know for the first few days of the Apple partnership Ron Wayne owned 10 % of the Apple partnership. Ron dropped out after the first week of the partnership.

Apple Popup museum 

The story of Steve Jobs is most interesting and the Popup museum covers his involvement developing the Apple company with many colorful and interesting displays.

Apple Popup museum 

Lonnie displays many good inspirational quotes and messages in the museum.






David's wife Gaynell Larsen comments about first visit to Computer Museum of America - Video "CLICK"

David G Larsen

Our visit with Lonnie Mimms and his wife Karin in Roswell, Georgia was just wonderful. I am looking forward to working with Lonnie as a board member of his Computer Museum of America. 

 "by David Larsen" KK4WW Computer Collector / Historian 

   

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