[HN Gopher] Retro-Computing Society of Rhode Island
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Retro-Computing Society of Rhode Island
Author : notpachet
Score : 79 points
Date : 2023-12-25 02:22 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (rcsri.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (rcsri.org)
| eminence32 wrote:
| It's fun to see this, mostly because things from Rhode Island
| don't often end up on the NH front page :)
|
| A related organization, the Rhode Island Computer Museum [1], is
| also great. Their warehouse (which is unfortunately by
| appointment only) is full of all sorts of really important gear
| from computing history. Their Learning Lab is more easily
| accessible, and has a few old PDPs, if I recall correctly.
| jjice wrote:
| It looks like the link may have been missed, but this looks
| like it's the website: https://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home
|
| Thank you for sharing this!
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| About a year ago I took my son to the RI Computer Museum in
| North Kingstown, and it _was awesome_.
|
| The people were super friendly, and I got a great explanation
| about debugging hardware faults on the PDP (PDP-9?) that was
| there.
|
| Now if only there were software-dev meetups in this end of the
| state :)
| Kennnan wrote:
| I lived for awhile in North Kingston RI and I absolutely loved
| the Rhode Island Computer Mueseum. It was usually staffed by
| older gentlemen, who would absolutely love to go into any topic
| related to computers they knew about. One of my now core
| memories is playing the original space wars on a working (only
| 8 remaining if i remember correctly) pdp 12 with one of my
| friends in elementary school.
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| RICM has one of those PDP-12s. And RCS/RI also has one! Two
| of these very rare machines, both in working condition, are
| located within a few miles of each other.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| I've been to the RICM and while the warehouse is kinda neat,
| everything is just sitting rusting. They're not doing anything
| with what they're sitting on, and a lot of it is very poorly
| protected/packaged. The warehouse was enormous, filthy, and had
| large doors open to the outdoors (far down the other end, but
| still.)
|
| They're also (reportedly) rather anti-Apple/Macintosh.
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| The warehouse is like the scene at the end of Raiders of the
| Lost Ark, where they file away the artifact into a box to be
| placed alongside countless shelves of other artifacts. I
| wouldn't say it's filthy as much as I would say it's dark and
| cluttered- they can really use some more structured
| organization and inventory management. They get donations of
| really large equipment, and their first priority is that it
| has a place where it won't be scrapped. But they have a ton
| of stuff, a small staff and modest budget, so they do what
| they can.
|
| One story they told me is that they are contacted by TV and
| movie production companies that need period-specific
| computers and props, so they'll pack up and send out various
| equipment and lease them out. They come back cleaned up and
| in better shape than when they sent them out.
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| > things from Rhode Island don't often end up on the NH front
| page
|
| Was that a New England-Freudian slip?
| jjice wrote:
| Thank you so much for sharing this! I've been in Rhode Island for
| a few years and never heard of this. I'll absolutely be making it
| to their next open house.
| cyberax wrote:
| RIP "Living Computers Museum" in Seattle :(
| IntelMiner wrote:
| It still _exists_ and the SDF helps keep the equipment from
| falling into direct disrepair
|
| The current word is the "owner" has no interest in it however
| but cannot close it down. So she's simply letting it fade into
| memory
| lobsterthief wrote:
| So sad. That place was fantastic. I'm surprised the owner
| won't let some nonprofit take over.
| chefandy wrote:
| While housing obviously takes center stage in real estate market
| discussions, these quirky little elements in cities all but
| evaporate when you get past a certain price point. In cities I've
| lived in, like Boston, the areas I spent time in got so bland in
| a vaguely upscale, premium-end-of-mass-market sort of way. I
| moved to a smaller city cheap enough for people to do neat things
| sort of like this and will never move back to a big city while
| it's drowning in housing costs and a thoroughly "upmarket basic"
| cultural bent.
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _The Retro-Computing Society of Rhode Island_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8818078 - Dec 2014 (6
| comments)
| djsedaw wrote:
| Not sure I'll visit, no speccy!
| pantantrant wrote:
| With retro computing, how will the island of Rhode Island
| communicate with the rest of the world? I.P. over avian carriers?
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| It does not cease to amaze me how all those large computers are
| less capable than their heavily miniaturized counterparts that
| are now part of everything. And how the most common use went from
| complex mathematical and scientific applications, to TikTok.
| Koshkin wrote:
| I wish they had an IBM/360 in their collection.
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