It’s hard to believe, but before that phone in your hand existed people used to tap on boxy, clunky machines called “computers.” Now the golden era of desktop computing will be feted at the Vintage Computer Festival, taking place over one weekend at Mountain View’s Computer History Museum.
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Located inside a building previously occupied by Silicon Graphics, the museum will host a variety of activities and hands-on demos celebrating inventions like the Atari, Apple I and Commodore 64. Visitors will learn about retro computing from the 1960s to the ’90s by exploring a showcase of historical computers, some original and some lovingly hacked to suit our modern times.
The schedule is packed with seminars like “Making Games in the 1980s,” “How Sphere Hid a Minicomputer Inside Their Micro” and “The World’s First Search Engine Was at Bletchley Park During WWII.” On Saturday, there is a film screening about Adam Osborne, who was cool before Steve Jobs with his invention of the portable computer.
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A ticket to the festival also buys admission to the museum. Current exhibits include rare prototypes of iconic Apple products, a chatbot-powered robot you can commune with and a self-driving car you can sit inside. Oh, and there’s also playable Pong.
Details: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. August 1-2 (with late events on Saturday) at 1401 North Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View; $42 for general festival tickets, computerhistory.org
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