Computer History Museum launches digital portal to browse its retro hardware online

The Computer History Museum has launched a digital portal so you can view its collection from home, the site reports via Hackaday. The museum is based near Mountain View, California, which the article notes can be quite a trek unless you live locally.

The online collection is organised into curator picks, stories from the collection and a “discovery wall” that lets visitors free-scroll through a wide range of historic hardware. Images on the site are high resolution, allowing close zooming to inspect details.

Highlights include an early Silicon Graphics Computer Systems mouse manufactured by Mouse Systems Corp. The device features three buttons and is presented among other quirky peripherals and relics from computing’s past.

Another notable object shown is described as the “world’s first Lisp processor megachip,” said to contain 553,687 transistors and 116,736 bits of RAM. The chip appears to be encased in glass in its display photos.

If you have a few minutes (or a few hours), the portal is presented as an easy way to dive into computing hardware’s history and pick out favourites from decades of designs and gadgets.

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