Comment by davidmurphy

11 days ago

CHM employee here. Always great to see CHM on HN. Glad folks are excited about this -- as are we! There's so much cool stuff in the Collection.

Does the digital portal also link to emulators (and documentation) for historical systems? I've always enjoyed things like:

https://smalltalkzoo.computerhistory.org

for example. Most of these systems were things that humans interacted with in some way, and that interaction is hard to get from static images. Watching a video of Larry Tesler demonstrating the Alto is great - and even better if you can turn around and try an emulated Alto in your browser (of course operational hardware would be even better.)

Great initiative - so now let me throw a query:

* Why isn't the Lewis Terman OH https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10265394... showing up in the main link?

* Also, not related to Oral Histories, but could CHM update their historical narrative to include the Vannevar Bush-designed computers that the NSA's predecessor OP-20-g used? https://www.governmentattic.org/8docs/NSA-WasntAllMagic_2002.... ; In so doing, I feel CHM needs to further neutralized its Silicon Valley centered-ness. Fred Terman may be the godfather of Silicon Valley, but even godfathers once needed thesis advisors, and his had the initials 'VB'.