The Computing History Museum at American University is the result of years of artifact collecting by Dr. Thomas J. (Tim) Bergin of the Computer Science and Information Systems Department. In 1995, Dr. Bergin served as Chair of the History Track for the Association for Computer Machinery's 1996 Annual Computer Science Conference. This Conference celebrated "50 Years of Computing." As part of this effort, he was asked to prepare an exhibit of artifacts to compliment a photographic exhibit prepared by Expert Events Inc. Following this, Dr. Bergin prepared six other exhibits of artifacts at other professional conferences and at the Bender Library. 

In the fall of 1999, Dr. Bergin was contacted by Neal McCristy who was the editor of Yesterday's Office, an on-line periodical which can be found at www.yesterdaysoffice.com. Neal had been surfing the web and came across the Computing History Museum's web site and wanted him to write something about how the museum got started. The material below was written in response to that request. A short history of the museum can be found here.

In the Winter of 1997, space formerly used to house ATMs was made available, and the Computing History Museum was born. The Museum is housed in two conjoined rooms, and contains 4 large display cases with original artifacts and materials, a working IBM 029 Keypunch machine, a copy of the Expert Events photographic exhibit prepared for the ACM, and a number of framed posters on the history of computing.  

Among the artifacts is a vacuum tube from the first computer, the ENIAC, a module from a UNIVAC I, the first commercial computer made in America, and architectural models of the IBM 1401 and the IBM System/360. The exhibit also contains original ENIAC working drawings, a set of ENIAC Technical Manuals from 1945, the Moore School Lectures (1946) and a manual for the Standards Western Automatic Computer (SWAC) which was the fastest machine in the world when completed in 1950. Most of the artifacts have been donated to the Museum, but some artifacts are on loan from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and the Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland.

The Museum also has a display of early microcomputers including the Processor Technology SOL-20 which sold for $995 in kit form in 1975; the Tandy/Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1 announced in August 1977; an Osborne I the first popular portable introduced in 1981, and the ever popular Commodore 64, introduced in 1982. The photographic exhibit spans the centuries from Charles Babbage (1830s) to the present. In addition, there are a number of framed posters, including: the ACM History of Electronic Computing timeline, the History of the Microprocessor from The Computer Museum, and a History of the Internet from a textbook publisher.

There are presently two special displays. The first is devoted to calculating devices, and contains abaci, slide rules, a copy of Napier's Bones ( c 1580 ) a copy of a Schickard Calculator (1623 ), and a number of mechanical adding machines from the late 19th century to the 1950s. The Museum also has a figure wheel and a carry arm donated by the Science Museum (London). These were left over from the Science Museum's recreation of Babbage's Difference Engine in 1992. The second special exhibit is devoted to programming languages, and contains original documentation and books on programming languages.

The goal of the Museum is educate and excite visitors with respect to the rich history of computing. In addition to various classes from American University, the Museum has hosted a number of elementary and secondary schools from the Washington area for tours and discussions, and has prepared visiting exhibits.
In 1998, the Museum received a two-year grant, from the Alfred Sloan Foundation, to create and maintain a web site devoted to the historiography of programming languages and software engineering. An extension in 2000, allowed us to build an expanded website to support (1) teaching the history of computing, and (2) the editorial board of the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, of which Dr. Bergin is the present Editor-in-Chief.  

We encourage your to take a Virtual Tour, learn more about the history of the museum, or examine the History of Computing On-line, an early student effort to document some of the artifacts in the Museum's collection.