The Digital Pioneer Computer Lecture Series
Gordon Bell worked on the first transistor computer in the USA, the TX-0 computer at MIT, which Gwen Bell used to analyse a redevelopment area of Boston. Gwen was the first person to develop a geographic information system on a computer and used it to produce a variety of maps. Gordon Bell moved to Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) where he contributed to DEC's PDP-1, PDP-4, PDP-5, PDP-6, and PDP-11 series of minicomputers. He became vice-president of engineering, in charge of the development of the VAX computer. Gordon Bell opened Manchester's 50th Anniversary celebrations of the Baby in 1998.
Ken Olsen was a co-founder of DEC. He took it upon himself to preserve the Whirlwind (The first computer to use magnetic core memory, built by MIT for the US Navy), and asked Gwen Bell to recreate the TX-0 and to preserve early DEC equipment.
Together Gordon Bell, Gwen Bell and Ken Olsen founded The Digital Computer Museum in 1975 at DEC in Marlborough, Massachusetts, Gwen Bell being its founding President. It was one of the first and is now the most comprehensive museum of computer history.
MIT's TX-0 computer
The museum started as an exhibition space in the lobby of DEC's Marlborough, MA Building until it was moved to downtown Boston in 1984 where it opened to the public. In 1998 it moved to its current site in Mountain View, California where it is known as The Computer History Museum.
The Digital Computer Museum's creation was announced by a series of "Digital Pioneer Computer Lectures" organised by Gordon Bell-descriptions of pioneering computers given by people closely involved in their design, construction and operation. The series was opened on September 23rd, 1979 with a lecture on the Cambridge UK's EDSAC computer by Maurice Wilkes, with subsequent lectures by Stibitz, Forrester, Atanasoff, Zuse, Wilkinson, Brainerd, Flowers and Dai Edwards, who gave the 8th lecture on September 9, 1981, describing the innovations of the early Manchester computers from the Baby to Atlas.
The posters displayed here are the museum's original advertisements for the first 9 Digital Pioneer Computer Lectures. The lectures themselves can be seen on video at tcm.computerhistory.org/videos.html
The Digital Pioneer Computer Lecture Series
Gordon Bell worked on the first transistor computer in the USA, the TX-0 computer at MIT, which Gwen Bell used to analyse a redevelopment area of Boston. Gwen was the first person to develop a geographic information system on a computer and used it to produce a variety of maps. Gordon Bell moved to Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) where he contributed to DEC's PDP-1, PDP-4, PDP-5, PDP-6, and PDP-11 series of minicomputers. He became vice-president of engineering, in charge of the development of the VAX computer. Gordon Bell opened Manchester's 50th Anniversary celebrations of the Baby in 1998.
Ken Olsen was a co-founder of DEC. He took it upon himself to preserve the Whirlwind (The first computer to use magnetic core memory, built by MIT for the US Navy), and asked Gwen Bell to recreate the TX-0 and to preserve early DEC equipment.
Together Gordon Bell, Gwen Bell and Ken Olsen founded The Digital Computer Museum in 1975 at DEC in Marlborough, Massachusetts, Gwen Bell being its founding President. It was one of the first and is now the most comprehensive museum of computer history.
MIT's TX-0 computer
The museum started as an exhibition space in the lobby of DEC's Marlborough, MA Building until it was moved to downtown Boston in 1984 where it opened to the public. In 1998 it moved to its current site in Mountain View, California where it is known as The Computer History Museum.
The Digital Computer Museum's creation was announced by a series of "Digital Pioneer Computer Lectures" organised by Gordon Bell-descriptions of pioneering computers given by people closely involved in their design, construction and operation. The series was opened on September 23rd, 1979 with a lecture on the Cambridge UK's EDSAC computer by Maurice Wilkes, with subsequent lectures by Stibitz, Forrester, Atanasoff, Zuse, Wilkinson, Brainerd, Flowers and Dai Edwards, who gave the 8th lecture on September 9, 1981, describing the innovations of the early Manchester computers from the Baby to Atlas.
The posters displayed here are the museum's original advertisements for the first 9 Digital Pioneer Computer Lectures. The lectures themselves can be seen on video at tcm.computerhistory.org/videos.html