Digibarn Computer Museum
                     www.digibarn.com

                       Visited by Sue

Alex told me about this retro site so here's some info about it.

Message from the Curator

The DigiBarn Computer Museum seeks to capture personal stories and
track technological evolution through a large collection of
vintage computer systems, manuals, videos, interviews, and other
fossil relics of the "Cambrian explosion" of personal computing
that ignited in 1975. When we get visitors who "burst into tears"
upon seeing certain systems which may have defined their lives and
careers, our cameras roll to capture the inevitable stories. Thus
the interconnected redwood rooms of the museum constitute a kind
of "memory palace" for the nerd-inclined and help us piece
together the amazing story of the invention of personal computing
and Cyberspace. It is my fantasy to one day "get professional
help" (ie: a foundation grant or other philanthropic support) and
really have the resources to fully document the people and their
inventions, and thereby capture the true essence of this time in
history. If you are interested and able to provide such support,
please don't hesitate to contact me.

If you are inclined, please keep on reading, for there is more on
the nature of this project to follow.

A Bit of Background

What and Where is the DigiBarn?

The DigiBarn is a ninety plus years old barn constructed of old
growth redwood that is part of the original "Ancient Oaks Ranch",
a 19th century farmstead nestled deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains
of Northern California. Serving six generations of families on the
farm as a livestock barn for horses, chickens, hogs, peacocks and
at one point housing an apple cider press, the DigiBarn was
extensively remodeled by the Kriz family from approximately 1968
to 1998. The Kriz's extended the structure, back-built a concrete
foundation and developed the upstairs hay loft into three rooms.
In May of 1998, your host, Bruce Damer, offered to buy the ranch
and this transaction consummated in August of 1998. Initially not
knowing what to do with 5,000 square feet of pretty fine space,
Bruce and his partner Ms. Galen Brandt used the barn for storage
and some company functions for their firm DigitalSpace
Corporation. Bruce christened the Ancient Oaks Ranch the "Digital
Garden" in keeping with its more high tech garden mission. Thus
the barn became the DigiBarn. In March of 2001, two pigs moved
into the downstairs stalls and one piglet was born that June
(surviving out of an initial litter of five). They are great
gatekeepers for the museum and complement it with their incessant
binary language of grunts (see the pig family above).

How the DigiBarn Museum got Started

On March 2, 2001, my friend Jake Bowman and I took time out from
the CONTACT conference at NASA Ames Research Center to visit the
Computer History Museum across the street. This was a very
exciting visit for me and stimulated the olde neurons into action
that these old systems and their history was truly intriguing.

On May 7th, 2001, joined by JM Valera and Allan Lundell, I made
the first serious steps to start a collection, by actually
plunking down hard earned dollars for several authentic pieces of
digital heritage (aka "junk") on our innaugural visit to the
famous Weird Stuff Warehouse. That same day a bonanza was struck
at a visit to an Apple dealer going out of business where I bought
a dozen Macs of 80s and early 90s vintage (some for as low as $1).
They were so nice they threw in a Woz special edition Apple IIGS
(see above), a system I had never heard of but came to respect.
Carting all this home to Ancient Oaks in Allan's car we then had
to cart it all upstairs, plunk it on the floor and voila.. instant
museum (or rather, instant silicon junkheap). It takes more than
this to create a museum and we invite you to explore our
collections and other parts of this site so lovingly created for
your nerdly history pleasure. See our pages on the Initiation of
the DigiBarn Computer Museum project here.

The previous year, in the summer of 2000, a construction crew,
friends of Ron Meiners and Lee Gilmore did a great job in
construction on the three upper story rooms (the former hay loft).
This was done in a work-trade swap which led to the wedding of Lee
and Ron at the DigiGarden in October of 2000. See our
photodocumentation of the construction project here. In the winter
of 2001, modern windows were added to the outside of the DigiBarn
upstairs rooms giving them a weathertightness necessary for real
use. Earlier in 2000 full 100 MB ethernet networking was added to
the upstairs rooms. So the space was now ready for use, but for
what?

Where is the DigiBarn Headed?

While I would say we are similar to the mother of all computing
museums, the Computer History Museum, in that our goals are to
preserve computer history a key difference would be in our
somewhat non-museum approach, for example:

We are a 'hands on' place where (at the risk to breaking them)
folks come here, boot up the systems, load their software and
relive some of their past.  We are about capturing the artifacts
in order to capture the stories.  For example, when guests come
our cameras roll so that we can document the people and their
lives behind the machines and software. The machines serve as a
memory palace facilitating the recalling of the times and lives of
people, especially how they interconnected with other people. This
focus on the interweaving of lives and who met who when and why is
inspired by James Burkes' connections approach to history.

The last thing is that we are a bit more whimsical than most
museums. For example, we are plastering the walls and ceilings
with 3,000 t-shirts because the t shirt is the symbol of nerd-dom
and why not surround the museum visitor with it?

Bringing the Little Known Histories to Life

"Official" histories like you might see on "Triumph of the Nerds"
leave out 99% of the real life and times, missing the rank and
file folks who were hands-on building the industry rather than
more well known industry leaders. So we now set about on the grand
project of piecing together the little human histories of the
birth of personal computing and of cyberspace from the bottom up.
It is handy to have all of Silicon Valley just over the hill here,
and we do get plenty of visitors. While these folks are still
around and so handy we can capture some amazing stories.

So, feel free to read some of our stories, visit our online
collections, explore our links, become a friend or visit us
sometime or let us know about a dear old computer or other stuff
for which you would like to find a home and make a donation. We
are often asked if we are a non-profit corporation and for now the
DigiBarn is remaining a private collection, although we are
looking at establishing a non-profit foundation.

So Who in Hades is Bruce Damer?

Bruce Damer (that be me, your curator) is a little known follower
of the digital age, hopping around to be near the various "hot"
spots of computer culture over the past 21 years or so. If you
want to find out what my "real life" is like, visit www.damer.com.
My path through computing history can be best summed up as
follows:

I looked over the shoulders of other nerd students at the TRS80
model 1 in high school but felt too shy to really get involved in
the computer club (1978-80).  Instead I read magazines about it
all and drew comic strips and created something artistically
bizarre called Weird Machines.

My first true (love) computer a pdp/11 34 running RSTS/11 at
Cariboo College in central British Columbia Canada on which I
wrote a crude layout package for designing a home with crude
graphics characters on a VT100 terminal (1981-2).

I worked on graphics on a Teledon videotext terminal, made an
animated space shuttle launch (1981).

Then I worked at the University of Victoria on some big BSD unix
system on a courier terminal (1982)

Then got my hands on a S100 CP/M system (called an Industrial
Micro System) where i wrote an accountants time billing system in
BASIC (1982)

Then I worked on fixing bad code on a Tandem NONSTOP mainframe and
another Vax system runing RSX 11 (1982)

Then I fooled around a bit on an Apple II and Apple III (1982)

Then I did some univeristy project on an IBM System 370 in machine
code (1982)

Then I fiddled with a VIC 20, Commodore 64, and a TI99/4A (1983-4)

Then I did my first IBM PC project at IBM Canada (lab instrument
system) written in BASIC (1983)

I did RPG programming on the weird IBM System/38

Then I touched the first Mac at my cousin's in Montreal in 1984

Then I used a VAX 11/750 in grad school, fooling around on uucp
and usenet (early internet), programming Tektronix graphix
terminals to show designs for star wars optical computers (1985-6)

Then I slaved away on various PCs AT to 486s to bring them a
decent graphical user interface, programming a rendition of the
Xerox Star environment to run on raw DOS PCs for Elixir and Xerox
(pre windows, 1987-90)

I ran a Three Rivers PERQ and Xerox 6085 workstation for learning
UI (1987-89)

I used a Mac IICi for UI development/graphics (1990)

I fiddled with a Sun SPARC IPX (1989)

Then I moved to Prague in Czechoslovakia to set up a lab and port
the Elixir Desktop to Windows (1990-94)

Then I used an Eastern Block Robotron 1070 mainframe to get back
on the Internet (1992-4)

I then got into 3D and Avatars and messed around with more Wintel
PCs and various SGI machines (1995-now)

And it has been various Wintel Pentia till today

Then I got crazy and started to COLLECT THEM ALL!

So if this doesnt scare you off, I don't know what will! Now ready
to come and visit?

Most Sincerely and at your service,

Bruce Damer
Curator

Computer Systems Housed at the DigiBarn

Calculators and Counting Machines (Prehistoric Computers)

Historic Systems not housed here but documented in our online
museum

Print Documentation
Memory Joggling Mind Boggling Advertisements
Revealing Brochures and Flyers
Whole Goshdarned Magazines
Downright Historic Books
Groundbreaking Articles
Technical Diagrams and Drawings
Product Manuals and Userguides
Papers for Academic Journals and Conferences
Online Documents
Presentations
Newsletters
Comics
Product Packaging
Posters Speak of an Era
T-Shirts, the Ultimate Schwag of the Culture
Hats, even cooler than T-Shirts
Audio and Video Documentation
Video Documentation (DigiBarn Movies!) and Video Artifacts
Audio Features and Artifacts
Computer Game Systems
Software
Printers & Plotters
Devices
Parts
Monitors & Terminals
Clocks & Radios
Cameras
Schwag
Jokes
Banners & Flags
Just Weird Stuff

For those like me who are interested in the Just Weird Stuff
category, one thing it contains is a Tennis Shoe Computer
Pedometer for the Apple II paddle port ... Sue

















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