1. Pioneer Legacy Shanghai, February 2011 JSTC 1
Computer History Museum’s Main Campus, Mountain View, CA
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2. Preserving History for Posterity
How would we know:
What led Johannes Guttenberg to invent
the printing press?
Who invented gunpowder?
How James Watt’s first steam engine compared with his later models?
The reaction of the members of the Royal Society to Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica?
How will future historians know the thinking of the semiconductor industry pioneers who launched the information age?
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3. The Computer History Museum
Mission: to preserve and present for posterity the artifacts and stories of the information age.
Founded in 1979, now has nearly 100,000 items from over 54 countries in the collection, the world’s largest collection of computer-related objects and materials.
More than 25,000 square feet of public displays in 120,000 square foot building in Mountain View, CA; plus separate 30,000 sq ft museum standard (e.g. temperature control) warehouse.
Almost 100,000 physical visitors and more than 1 million unique website visitors a year (
Long-standing arrangements with the Smithsonian Institution, the London Science Museum, the Deutsches Museum, the IEEE and the Chemical Heritage Foundation.
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4. The Computer History Museum and SIA
SIA selected the Computer History Museum to preserve SIA’s legacy.
Many of the documents in the SIA office in San Jose were donated to the Computer History Museum.
Collection of SIA annual reports
First semiconductor technology roadmap
Testimony before the U.S. Congress and Administration
Newpaper articles
Other public documents from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
The Computer History Museum intends to provide on-line access to this collection so it is available to historians worldwide.
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5. The Computer History Museum – Oral History
More than 350 videotaped and transcribed oral histories (OHs) that capture the stories of the pioneers in their own words.
Individual OHs include:
Morris Chang, TSMC founder
Federico Faggin, Intel 4004, Zilog, Synaptics
Dov Frohman, EEPROM inventor
Gordon Moore, co-founder Fairchild, Intel
CHM Event OHs include:
Shockley Labs Alumni Reminiscences Oral History
celebration
Product Teams OH include:
Atmel Programmable Logic
Intel 8008 Microprocessor
Zilog Z80 Microprocessor
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6. International Oral History
The Computer History Museum is expanding its efforts to preserve the history of semiconductors in important areas of the world where major advances have occurred in the last 50 years.
The Museum recently signed an MOU with a major university in Taipei to record oral histories of 10 IT pioneers
Recordings to be 2-3 hours finished length.
Interview to be in English or Mandarin, pioneer’s choice.
$30,000 budget (or less, depending how it is managed)
Museum seeking similar partnerships in
Japan, Europe, Korea, China.
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