Gordon Bell - Tour of the Computer History Museum, Part I

Posted By: scobleizer | Oct 3rd, 2005 @ 8:23 PM | 28,079 Views | 17 Comments
Gordon Bell. The name is legendary among geeks. Just read his Wikipedia page to see his accomplishments.

About 30 years ago he started collecting computers while working at DEC. That little hobby turned into a sizeable Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. We were honored to be able to get a tour from Gordon and John Toole, the executive director and CEO.

Also in the video are Dave Winer, founder of UserLand Software, my son Patrick, and Dan'l Lewin, co-founder of NeXT Computer. Dan'l and Gordon now work at Microsoft.

Dan'l was on the original Macintosh team and tells us some stories about the early days.

Making an appearance was the Google Code Jam participants who were getting a tour of the museum at the same time we were walking around. You also get to meet Jesse, Dan'l son, who works at an Apple store in Palo Alto.

File size is 191 MB.

Part II will be up tomorrow.
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#Oct 3rd, 2005 @ 9:43 PM
iStation
iStation
Fuujin
Donators, donators, donators! Cool
#Oct 4th, 2005 @ 1:02 AM
ajayjuneja
ajayjuneja
This was so much fun to make! Great job on the video Robert!!!



#Oct 4th, 2005 @ 1:53 AM
scobleizer
scobleizer
I'm the video guy
ajayjuneja wrote:
This was so much fun to make! Great job on the video Robert!!!





Thanks Ajay for arranging the tour. That really was a once-in-a-lifetime tour and interview. Gordon Bell just rocks. Tomorrow you get to hear about his DEC days.

And, I'll get the video of your car up soon.
#Oct 4th, 2005 @ 2:45 AM
darrenstraight
darrenstraight
Great video, very worth while watching!
#Oct 4th, 2005 @ 4:51 AM
Manip
Manip
I really don't approve of you operating a video camera while you're driving.. Apart from the fact it is almost certainly illegal, it is stupid and if you hit someone, like the coach with people on it in front of you then you would be 100% responsible and might loose your licence! Not to mention the fact you had a frigging kid in the car who didn't look like they had a seat belt on either! Mad
#Oct 4th, 2005 @ 6:42 AM
s_jetha
s_jetha
'Will it run on my 486?'
Roll on part two!! Big Smile
#Oct 4th, 2005 @ 7:12 AM
rhm
rhm
It's very interesting to see the exhibits (can't wait to see the more modern stuff) and hear from Gordon Bell and John Toole. Could have done with less annoying interruptions from Dave Winer though. I'd love to visit the museum myself, but probably won't be coming to the USA in the foreseable future due to US Imigration's policy of treating visitors like criminals, so this is a good substitute.

Anyway, it's a bit late to ask now you've already filmed it, but does Gordon know about or was involved with SAIL - the Stanford AI Lab computer? I've read quite a bit about it online and it has to be one of the most interesting computer installtions around having started off as a PDP (7 I think) prototype that was then expanded and customised over and over by the people at Stanford. It had many firsts including Spacewars and terminals where you could move from one to another and get all your work back up exactly as you left it.
#Oct 4th, 2005 @ 8:03 AM
FuzzyOne
FuzzyOne
Nice vid, but why is manip allowed here Expressionless
#Oct 4th, 2005 @ 9:04 AM
Nata1
Nata1
.Search - Google Appliance killer
Scoble, you are the cruelest guy I know!  Right at the coolest part, where you're talking about a couple of people actually programming on it, the video stops,

I can't wait to see part II

Awesome video Scoble - I'd say this one is my favorite, but I have so many favorites
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