Computing History Displays: Ground Floor

The ground floor lobby is the main entrance to the department and houses the elevators up to student laboratories. It is consequently very busy and there is not much room for displays.

However, we do have on display a bas-relief by the sculptor Para Matchitt which was comissioned for the department in 1984. We have retained this sculpture at the entrance to our department as our home has moved over the years. Although the symbols in the bas-relief were not chosen to represent Computer Science, we do find that they seem to represent many aspects of our discipline. The work was featured on the cover of our 1998 handbook:

Additionally, in the corridor to the west of the lobby we have an exhibit on the Apple Macintosh which was the personal computer used in our laboratories in the 1980s and 90s. This includes a display of many models of the Macintoshes, starting with the first Macs and Lisas and including many of the innovative design styles and advances over the years.

We also have on display a large set of posters on the Macintosh and Lisa prepared by the graphical user interface expert Marcin Wichary, perhaps best viewed via his home page.