project description 1
September 27th, 2006
” Teaching from a pile of junk”
The junk is a collection of computers and computer artifacts (primarily hardware and documentation) that the Department of Computer Science has accumulated. The collection includes an Altair 8800 microcomputer (the first Personal computer available as a kit), material salvaged from the Mark III computer built at the Harvard Computational Laboratory for NSWC, Dahlgren in the 1950s, various operation manuals, an IBM PC (first model), an Osborne portable microcomputer, films, audio, and video tapes that are primary sources related to computing history, and several other items.
The primary goal is to make these objects and information about them available to anyone who would like to use them in a teaching or research context, in which people may use existing information about these objects or add appropriate related information.
It also seems reasonable to be able to use the objects in a physical location with Internet access may be used to refer to the database about them. A possible approach is to put either a bar code or RFID chip on each item so that it may be scanned so that when the item is scanned or sensed, a URL is sent to a browser that retrieves links to the information from the database.
Finally, this collection of information needs to have a CMS front-end so that it may be deployed and added to appropriately.