Now see together the third part
of our adventure in California.
For the ones who lost the first part,
click
here!
For the ones who lost the second part, click
here!
Friday, the 13th January 2006
The waking, the trip into the city, the
coming back and the Golden Gate
Inevitable date for all the tourists,
we thought that Golden Gate would be a foreseen and boring place. We have
received fantastic emotions instead...
California
Highway Patrol
(take a look at the dummy head of Spiderman in the antenna)
San Francisco by night
Chinatown
Saturday, the 14th January 2006
The last day of our journey is dedicated
to the desidered visit to the Computer
History Museum di Mountain View.
We already knew this building, and we knaw that they have received a huge
donation from Bill & Melinda Gates Fundation (yes, they!) for something
about 15 milion dollars. We have then discovered that the total amount
of the generous gift comes to 75 milions dollar, and that they hope to
reach the total amount of 150 milions in a few years!
It's easy to imagine what is possible to do with such an amount, the extenal
structure is huge, and the entrance is more similar to a reception of
a big hotel than to a simple museum:
Inside we discover that the public exibition
is only the 10%of the total amount of the museum, made out of all the
brands and computer models ever produced, with a particular attention
for the "pre personal" era, that historical age when computers
were nearly 30 tons weight, taking up big rooms to them consacrated.
In the first room we find milestone who
have created the cimputer age: memories out of ferrite, the one based
on tapes (1,5 mt of diameter!), the control unit of Apollo 11, computers
in valve and relays, each of them deserving a page of description, but
we cannot last longer.
We like to present you somne images, important as a rarity, for what we
have found: the Computer History Museum is for sure more important as
a project compared to ours, made easier by the geographic location (the
Silicon Valley) and by the huge financial aids from he big industries
of the place.
But we have to state precisely that this museum doesn't nullify ours using
as comparison Apple products: being a not specific museum we have verified
that whey don't have all the products produced by Apple, differently from
us that we are very close to complete the whole range. Anyway l'History
Museum is huge for exposition, place, thanks to the rarity of the products
exposed, and thanks to something that we don't have: three models of the
APPPLE I
The entrance of the 'visible storage'
Roberto Odino amazed by the 'wall of personals', in History Museum
Altair 8800, the ancestor of'Apple I (oh, yes...)
Weaving of wires
A strange prototype from what age?
Valve unit and and a complex colling system
Memories in Ferrite and the fist tape unit
Control unit of Apollo 11
The second 'wall of personals' and a detail
of the Xerox family
The myth CRAY 1
The myth APPLE I (signed
by Wozniak)
Apple I motherboard
And some Apple rarities, such as multicolor
Powerbook 170
given by frmer CEO John Sculley...
...an arabian APPLE II...
W.A.L.T. Wizzy Active Lifestyle Telephone
...the machine with that Steve Wozniak
and Steve Jobs
scrounge phone calls...
Amazed by such things, an by such economical
strength we are nearly to leave Computer History Museum, when a rush of
courage comes to us: what a perfect occasion to present us, to explaing
who we are, so weak in money but so plenty of Apple products?
So we pluck up courage and we ask to talk to someone of the staff. After
some hesitations John Toole, one of the managers meets us, in the upstairs
room up the 'Visible Storage' (such a plenty
vision!)
We introduce us to him, we speak about our museum, or our tour to Apple,
and about our idea to start a collaboration between our museums, so to
fulfill the lacks in Apple Product range.
John seems interested: 'we don't have as much of Apple.... we are not
specific in this brand, we miss a lot of thing, and it's not easy to find
out plenty of this products; we could start excanging our surplus of machines,
what do you think?'
What do we think? Well, It does not happen every day to receive an offer
like this from a 75 million dollar museum... but the best is yet to came.
John lead us in the 'backstage', the stock.
Here we can see what is going to be shown in the next years: an endless
expanse of enormous computer and peripherals, a great amount of not known
devices, a lot of Apple products, everything filed and serialized, one
by one. This is a stolen image of this huge richness, that
reminds a bit our stock:
The visit ends with us buying some gadgets
(they have mugs, t-shirts, books too).. we exit the museum worn-out by
surprise, happy for our courage of speaking to them, introduce us and
start this collaboration: another success for AllAboutApple!
EPILOGUE
Like every adventure, this first voyage
in the USA comes to an end.
After a discouraging start everything has been a crescendo of emotions,
discoveries, surprises, that leave us breathless.
USA, at leas California, are beautiful: it deserves a visit and there
is no other fate for us to come another time for a second visit, discovering
non only USA but other states too, searching for a culture plenty of things
to be seen.
See you next journey , we leave with the pictures of Google
headquarters (yes, here it is, not so far from Computer History
Museum) and with the pictures of the last night, Saturday, with the beautiful
vision of Union Square.
Thank you for reading 'til the end.
Alessio Ferraro
William Ghisolfo
Letizia Tomaselli
Roberto Odino
Emanuele Donetti
Marco Mioli
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