These are sites that we think you might find useful in finding out more about the history and future of IT
British Library
You can find out more about the resources available from the British Library by following the link below:
Centre for Computer History - Cambridge
The Centre for Computing History is much more than a museum. Based in Cambridge, it hosts hands-on exhibitions, educational workshops and a wide range of activities and events. Most importantly, it makes the history of computing relevant and fun for all ages!
Charles Babbage Institute Minnesota, USA
The CBI Archives collects, preserves and provides access to rich archival collections and rare publications documenting the history of technology, from the era of tabulators and electromechanical calculators in the period prior to World War II, through the development of the electronic digital computer, mainframes, mini and microcomputers, software and networking. Oral histories, photographs, journal and serial publications and a reference library complement the archival and special collections holdings.
Computer Conservation Society
The CCS was constituted in September 1989 as a Specialist Group of the BCS. It is thus covered by the Royal Charter and the charitable status of the BCS.
The aims of the CCS
- To promote the conservation, restoration and reconstruction of historic computers and to identify existing computers which may need to be archived in the future.
- To develop awareness of the importance of historic computers.
- To develop expertise in the conservation, restoration and reconstruction of historic computers.
- To represent the interests of Computer Conservation Society members with other bodies.
- To promote the study of historic computers, their use and the history of the computer industry.
- To publish information of relevance to these objectives for the information of Computer Conservation Society members and the wider public.
Computer History Museum - Mountain View, California
The Computer History Museum is a nonprofit organization with a four-decade history as the world’s leading institution exploring the history of computing and its ongoing impact on society. The Museum is dedicated to the preservation and celebration of computer history and is home to the largest international collection of computing artifacts in the world, encompassing computer hardware, software, documentation, ephemera, photographs, oral histories, and moving images.
The Museum brings computer history to life through large-scale exhibits, an acclaimed speaker series, a dynamic website, docent-led tours and an award-winning education program.
IBM Museum - Hursley, UK
The museum at IBM Hursley Park exists to help preserve IBM’s historical heritage. The museum contains artefacts from the Hursley Park location as well as hardware from the company’s beginnings through to many of the products developed at Hursley over the years. Staff on-site can visit the museum at any time. Customer groups are often shown around the Museum during visits to the Executive Briefing Centre but due to its location in the IBM development laboratory the Museum is not open to the general public. However visits by organised groups can be, and are, arranged. Recent visitors have included several branches of the University of the Third Age (U3A), Chichester College,OGLE, the Computer Conservation Society and the National Museum of Computing (Bletchley Park). Applications for such visits should be made to uklabscomms@uk.ibm.com.
IT History Society
- A global network of IT historians and archivists
- Our exclusive International Database of Historical and Archival Sites
- IT Honor Roll of people who have made a noteworthy contribution to the industry
- Records of Hardware, Software, and Companies databases
- Technology Quotes
- Calendar of upcoming events
- An active Blog
LEO Computers Society
The LEO Computers Society website celebrates the World’s first business computer.
Membership of the Society is open to:
• all ex-employees of LEO Computers and its succeeding companies;
• anyone who worked with a LEO computer;
• and anyone who has a specific interest in the history of LEO Computers.
They encourage those who have an interest in LEO, as specified above, to join the Society
Membership is currently free of charge.
The Mobile Phone Museum
National Museum of Computing - Bletchley Park
The National Museum of Computing, located on Bletchley Park, is an independent charity housing the world’s largest collection of functional historic computers, including the rebuilt Colossus, the world’s first electronic computer, and the WITCH, the world’s oldest working digital computer. The museum enables visitors to follow the development of computing from the ultra-secret pioneering efforts of the 1940s through the large systems and mainframes of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and the rise of personal computing in the 1980s and beyond.
Girls into Computing gives links to many organisations that aim to increase the numbers of girls going into computing.
Science Museum - London
Search Results for Computer History
This will take you to a page where you can look through all the items returned by searching “Computer History”
Celebrating more than 200 years of innovation in information and communication technologies. You can re-live remarkable moments in history, told through the eyes of those who invented, operated or were affected by the new wave of technology, from the first BBC radio broadcast in 1922 to the dawn of digital TV.
Swansea University History of Computing Collection
The University’s History of Computing Collection contains equipment, software, archives, ephemera, oral histories, and videos. It was founded, in Autumn 2007, in order to study historically technological development and innovation and, especially, the relationship between computing technologies and people and society.
One important focus is the development of computing in Wales. They have found that by investigating the local history of computing they are better able to see and try to understand the complicated interplay of technical, social, economic and cultural “causes and effects”.
The Collection is also interested in certain specialist areas of computing. The choice of these subjects reflects the interests of members of Swansea University and friends of the Collection. For example, they have an archive of L J Comrie, FRS (1893-1950), a pioneer of numerical methods, which contains notes and his collection of mathematical tables; and they have archives charting the development of theoretical computer science and formal methods for software engineering.
ThinkTank Birmingham Science Museum
Until April 2024 the exhibition Makers and Machines: creativity in the computer age is running at the Birmingham Science Museum. The exhibition includes contributions from local people involved with programming and computers, including AIT interviewee Dame Stephanie Shirley. Find out more in our news article.
North West Computer Museum
Based in Leigh, the North West Computer Museum showcases video game classics from the 1970s to the present day.
It also has a myriad of machines, such as Acorn Electrons, Sinclair ZX80s, Xbox 360s and even a replica Apple-1 and caters to school pupils and families, encouraging people to be hands on with the computers.
