Retrotechtacular: Vintage Computer Museum Playlist

vintage-computer-museum

Have you ever seen one of these SCELBI 8B computers? This is one of the first hobby computer kits which were sold starting in 1974.

This is just one of the many pieces of vintage computing hardware shown off in this playlist (the SCELBI is the fifth video). The collection is part of the Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum. [Dave Larsen], the curator of the collection, has been accumulating historic and often rare hardware for decades. More recently he’s been making video documentaries of the pieces and posting them for your enjoyment.

We love museums, but this is something different. [Dave’s] videos walk us through each exhibit, often filling in the story with anecdotes and insight from his own personal experience. It’s like a school field trip to the museum for those of us who can’t get enough of the moldy oldies.

We remember seeing at least one cool hack that used the 8008 processor also found in the computer pictured above. It was a clock built from a similar system.

6 thoughts on “Retrotechtacular: Vintage Computer Museum Playlist

  1. That reminds me, I have an 8008 CPU that I need to do something with. As of right now though, I’m still waiting for my custom PCBs for my home made 8085 based computer to come in the mail.

  2. Sweet…. this place is only 3 hours away from me. Funny, I was actually transferring Apple ][ dsk images to real diskettes (preparing for a retro gaming night) right before I read this.

  3. That looks like an old Microswitch/Cherry Hall Effect key that I have been looking for for years! Those things will almost never wear out. And each switch puts out a 57uS pulse, nice for bread boards, no debouncing needed.

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