Vintage - Apple-1 Computer Clone operational at the "Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum"

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NEWS FLASH - Bob Luther is selling his "First Apple 1 Computer"  December 11,2014 at Christie's Auction.  Sold for $365,000
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Apple 1 clone display 

Apple-1 clone is operational and running programs just fine here in our museum. Grayson Van Beuren as part of his Graduate Independent Studies at Virginia Tech (VT) has been helping with interactive operational retro computers. This week the Apple 1 clone was tested and executes programs just fine. Grayson comes  to the museum every Friday for a several hours in the afternoon and we work together on projects for his studies. He is a very enthusiastic and a joy for me to spend time with in the museum. The museum is about a 50 minute drive from the VT campus and this study project takes up a lot of his Friday's.

Grayson Van Beuren

Grayson loading cassette Basic into the Apple-1. Basic loads fine using this old Walkman cassette player.


Grayson usually takes a vintage computer back to campus and works from home some Friday's. This is good use of his time and reduces his travel time to Floyd.

Running Apple 1 Basic 

The computer executes Basic just fine and is a popular display for our museum visitors.
Brandon Cholodenko assembled this Apple-1 clone for our museum by  starting with the Mimeo Apple-1 PC board from Mike Willegal. Brandon assembling of the Apple clone was great - it worked perfectly out of the box. 
This  Mimeo Apple-1 is just the ticket to get our original Apple-1 operational. The same power transformers and keyboard can be used operating the original Apple 1's.

                                              Operational Apple 1 Clone Computer

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It was a busy Friday for Gayson with a visit to the museum warehouse on the trip back to VT.

Grayson in Computer  Museum Warehouse

Grayson and a view inside the warehouse.  The warehouse contains 10,000 items  all entered on the professional museum software "Past Perfect". It has taken at least 5 years of intermittent work to get the inventory cataloged and entered into our collection database. The 10,000 items represent my 45 years of collecting and includes various computer memorabilia. I thank my summer student interns for entering most of data into "Past Perfect".

Grayson Van  Beuren & Apple Lisa computer

Grayson inspecting the Apple section of the warehouse looking at several Lisa computers.

The museum original Apple-1 computers are not in the warehouse. They are stored in the local commercial bank vault. I would not even trust having them at home. The house could burn down and they would be gone for good. The bank seems to be the best solution for storing safely.

Grayson Van Beuren with Core Memory

Grayson inspects a core memory stack.  This core 18 boards with 18 X 18 bit words. This is a total of 326 18 bit words of core memory. I really hugh box for so few words - yep really big cores. This demonstration memory module was donated to our museum by Dr. Thomas Haddock author of  "A Collector's Guide to Personal Computers and Pocket Calculators" you will find this book listed in our books for collectors.

David Larsen

The curators here at the museum always look forward to working with Grayson. We are all learning new things from this independent study project.

.^{"by David Larsen"  KK4WW Computer Collector Historian}   
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Vintage Computers -Graduate Independent Study at "Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum"

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We are delighted to be working with Grayson Van Beuren in a Virginia Tech -  Graduate Independent Study program at the museum. Grayson became interested in doing a study after seeing the "Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum"  article in the Roanoke times by  Catherine Van Noy.  Grayson also visited our museum during open house last month.  Grayson has started his project  by making several of our  old computers operational and encouraging folks to give the operating historic computers a try.

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L-R Grayson Van Beuren, David Larsen-Curator

Here is Grayson's Study plan.
Grayson Van Beuren

Material Culture and Humanities
Computers and Museums Material Culture Project
Independent Study Proposal

This independent study’s purpose is to explore the history of the electronic computer through its material culture. It also aims to facilitate a better understanding of the unique preservation and presentation problems surrounding this delicate and largely esoteric field of material culture.                                                          



Grayson Van Beuren tells about his Independent Study at the museum

L-R Emily Wilson -Assistant Curator,
 Grayson Van Beuren

The independent study will occur through a partnership with the Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum in Floyd, Virginia. The museum’s founder, retired instructor of instrumentation at Virginia Tech David Larsen, has agreed to host a part of the IS. The museum’s collection represents forty years of collecting on the part of Mr. Larsen. From the museum website:

Mr. Larsen’s expertise in the field of microcomputers, and especially the collection and preservation of microcomputers, should make this a valuable independent study for the student.

Grayson with Apple 1 computer project

The independent study will be comprised of two parts: weekly visits to the museum of three to four hours during which the student will act as an intern, learning about the presentation and preservation of computer material culture in the process, and outside research into the history of the preservation of computer hardware and other forms of material culture associated with the computing field. These two parts of the study will culminate in the student writing a 10-15 page paper summing up his experiences at the Bugbook and examining the problems surrounding preservation and presentation of computer material culture in museums and other historic institutions.
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Nathan, Conette, Gaynell Larsen, David Larsen (curator)

We are getting more visitors in the museum every day. On the left is Nathan and Anat Oster from Israel - Saturday 9-13-14. Nathan is a lawyer and Dr. Oster is Head of  Computer Science department, Beit Berl Collage.  They were very enthusiastic about our museum display. Their work in Israel sounds real interesting and we may visit them in the future.

David Larsen

The curators here at the museum are looking forward to working with Grayson. I am sure we will all learn from this independent study.

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