Computer Science
Computing History Displays: Third Floor
This floor is the home of the Computer Science Department office and the waiting area for visitors, but we also have some displays.
Display cabinets hold the central part of our collection of Personal Computers. We have about 80 machines on display, some in every lobby, but with most Macintoshes on the ground floor. We have a good collection of early "luggable" computers. We will eventually provide an annotated list of our holdings.
We also have on display on this floor a set of the first iMac covers, as shown on the right. Some details on this display are here.
Another display discusses the history of PC Operating Systems. It is illustrated with some CTOS "business strength" computers from the 1980s.
Also on display is a collection of computer mice. A history of the mouse is included in the page linked below. (This display really belongs with I/O on floor 5 but there is no suitable space for it there.)
However, in pride of place next to our department office we now have the dynamic sculpture "Main Frame" by the sculptor Leigh Cristensen. This was installed in 2011. Main Frame represents computer circuits for adding numbers encoded using ball bearings. You can admire Main Frame at rest at any time but will need to make a special arrangement to see it operating. More details are in the page accessed below.
