Tales from the history of Canadian technology

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Travel back in time

As noted in the Globe and Mail Travel section Wednesday, the Personal Computer Museum in Brantford is going to be open this Saturday, 10am to 4pm (and again March 17). While the collection doesn't seem to have many Canadian artifacts, that's no reason to stay away!

It would be worth mentioning that there are many collectors in Canada with similar small museums, though many are not open for unscheduled public visits. There is the York University Computer Museum, aka YUCOM (a research collection which does emphasize Canadian microcomputers and mentioned on this blog before) or Dave Dunfield's remarkable and extensive collection. The Canadian Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa has a large collection of Canadian microcomputers as well.

It would likely surprise many people, but the world's first personal microcomputer, the MCM/70, was invented in Canada around 1972, several years before Apple or the Altair. Research at YUCOM was crucial to bringing this story back to light.

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