Articles by Computer History Museum

The microprocessor is hailed as one of the most significant engineering milestones of all time. The lack of a generally agreed definition of the term has supported many claims to be the inventor of the microprocessor. The original use of the word “microprocessor” described a computer that employed a microprogrammed …

Embedded in Silicon Valley are themes of innovation, entrepreneurship, business, and technology, as well as deeply human stories. As interns with the Computer History Museum’s Exponential Center, the four of us—Maya, Yuki, Catherine, and Hannah—started our internship with little inside knowledge of these themes; at school we study a wide …

Perhaps you are like me: You’ve aware that quantum computing is a hot topic today but have a nagging feeling that you don’t really have a good picture of what it’s all about. Sure, you know it has something to do with the unintuitive behavior of the world described by …

A  microprocessor-embedded Lucite toilet seat and colorful handheld sun umbrellas featured in a group photograph of attendees at the 44th Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop (AMW44) in April 2018 represent the irreverent sense of humor combined with the pursuit of cutting-edge technology and an unrelenting hacker ethic that have pervaded these influential …

By Annemarie Foy and Sirisha Munukutla, Teen Engagement Council After months of planning, organizing, and sending many, many emails, the Teen Engagement Council hosted “Power Up the Future” on June 22, 2018, bringing approximately 500 people to the Museum for the first of an annual event series dedicated to promoting teens’ …

Remember when “Made in China” was synonymous with a cheap toy or electronic knockoff? Those days are long over. Chinese tech firms, once seen as quaint or copycats, can now count Alibaba, Tencent, and Ant Financial in the world’s top 10 most valuable internet companies, alongside Alphabet, Facebook, and Amazon. …

Today, sequencing our genetic code or doing a DNA test is affordable, fast, and can even connect people with long lost relatives (for example, Ancestry.com and 23andMe). Additionally, these genetic databases are producing real-world applications—including creating targeted drug therapies to treat certain cancers, narrowing down suspects in criminal investigations, and …

When a founder’s vision sparks a funder’s interest, an idea can become an enterprise with the potential to reimagine the whole idea of community. That’s what happened when TaskRabbit founder Leah Busque and Floodgate venture capitalist Ann Miura-Ko joined forces. The two discussed their partnership growing one of the earliest …

The Computer History Museum (CHM) recently released six video-recorded oral histories of key engineers and scientists from Japan who made seminal contributions to the magnetic recording technologies used in hard disk drives. Hard disk drives were invented by IBM in the United States in the mid-1950s and have formed the …

On Saturday, April 28, 2018, the Computer History Museum (CHM), proudly inducted three extraordinary Fellows to its elite Hall of Fellows: Dov Frohman-Bentchkowsky, Dame Stephanie Shirley CH, and Guido van Rossum. The Museum’s Hahn Auditorium was filled with technology leaders, innovators, and visionaries from Silicon Valley and around the world, …