Serious Fun: Representation and Popularity In Early PC Gaming

 

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Decoding the Past: Conversations with PC Innovators

Wednesday, October 26th 

This session, Serious Fun: Representation and Popularity In Early PC Gaming, is an opportunity to join a conversation with Benj Edwards, tech historian, veteran technology journalist, and current AI and Machine Learning Reporter for Ars Technica. As a journalist, Edwards broke stories about the importance of software preservation, early video game history, the first computer art, minority and female tech pioneers, and online service archeology. A collector of vintage computers and video games, Edwards shares his expertise on his blog Vintage Computing and Gaming (VC&G) and is a regular contributor to the Retronauts podcast.

Harry McCracken, technology journalist and current editor for Fast Company, will moderate the conversation.

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Sound Bytes with Harry McCracken

Our video archive featuring the speakers in our Decoding the Past series continues to grow! On April 19, we hosted a conversation with Harry McCracken, veteran technology journalist and current editor for Fast Company. In case you missed it, you can watch a recording of the event here!

After our conversation, Harry stuck around to reflect upon his earliest and most memorable experiences with personal computing. Check out our third installment of the Sound Bytes series with Harry McCracken here: 

Summer 2022 Message and Update

Thanks to the partnership between CISAT and School of Arts and Humanities, the Paul Gray PC Museum selects a Museum Studies student to serve as Executive Director during their coursework at Claremont Graduate University (CGU). Not only is this innovative model a boon for the museum, but it offers graduate students the remarkable opportunity to run all operations of a museum, and the freedom to develop initiatives suited to their experience and career goals, all with the safety net of highly active and supportive board of directors. I am excited to share the accomplishments of our past and present directors, and announce our new Executive Director, Bailey Westerhoff!

Kiera Peacock, founding Executive Director of the Paul Gray PC Museum, currently works at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives at Stanford University. As an exhibitions team member, Kiera supports the development, coordination, and promotion of physical and digital exhibitions. Prior to working at Stanford, Kiera has worked at several cultural heritage organizations in Southern California. During her time as the Executive Director of the Paul Gray PC Museum, Kiera curated two exhibitions, conserved artifacts from the collection, and initiated a successful fundraising campaign for the museum. She currently serves on the board of the museum. Kiera holds an MA in Cultural Studies from CGU. 

Allison Koehler graduated from CGU in May with an MA in Cultural Studies, thus concluding her term as the second Executive Director of the Paul Gray PC Museum. The primary focus of her tenure was to develop education and public programming initiatives for the museum. Allison helped launch the museum’s ongoing speaker series, Decoding the Past: Conversations with PC Innovators, and created a classroom curriculum, available on our website here, to help students and educators engage with the museum’s collection. Allison currently works as an Educator for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, designing and implementing programming for students, teachers, and families. Allison also holds an MA in Education from Antioch University.

New Executive Director, Bailey Westerhoff is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Cultural Studies with a focus in Museum Studies and Art Management at CGU. Studying in Florence, she earned her MA in Museum Studies from Marist College in conjunction with the Institution Lorenzo de’ Medici. Bailey has experience working with museums of all sizes and subjects, with past projects focusing on visitor accessibility, education, and new museum construction. Recently Bailey has concentrated her attention on garnering skills in nonprofit development and fundraising. As the new Executive Director of the Paul Gray PC Museum, Bailey is excited to continue growing the museums audience while ensuring the organizations financial and educational legacy.

On behalf of the museum, I want to thank you all for your support and donations that have made this Executive Director position possible. I’m proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish during my tenure, and I can’t wait to see where Bailey takes the museum in the future!   -Allison Koehler

A Note From Our Board

We are in a season of transitions at the Paul Gray Personal Computing Museum.  We weathered the past few years of the pandemic by strengthening our programming, by expanding our audience and by confirming the great value of our leadership model.  The last item, our leadership team, led by MA student and now alumna, Allison Koehler, and now arriving new Executive Director, PhD student Bailey Westerhoff, has given all of us a great deal of pride in the work of the past and confidence in the future.  This leadership model, born of a unique partnership between the Center for Information Systems and Technology and the School of Art and Humanities’ Museum Studies program, will now weather a different transition, the retirement of Professor Lorne Olfman, a colleague and protégé of Paul Gray, a long-time and beloved leader of CISAT, a founding board member of the PGPCM and a dear colleague of mine.  Lorne’s dedication to the museum and his hope for its continued and on-going success serve as a profound injunction to shepherd the museum forward.  Please consider paying homage to Lorne and his devotion, care and collaborative fervor by helping us honor this meaningful and productive past by securing the museum’s future with an essential donation.  The museum is funded entirely by donations from its supporters.  Strong support for the museum will guarantee that these transitions will only add to our continued success. Please click here to donate now! 

Joshua Goode

Associate Professor of History and Cultural Studies and Director of the Museum Studies Program at CGU

Sound Bytes with Maria Klawe

Through our newest initiative, Sound Bytes, we have begun to build a video archive highlighting the experience and expertise of our speakers from Decoding the Past.  In these micro-interviews, we ask each participant to reflect upon their most memorable experiences with personal computers and to share their personal recommendations for our collection. Check out our second installment of the series with Maria Klawe here: 

The Roots of Techno-Optimism

 

Join us for the next installment of our ongoing conversation series, Decoding the Past: Conversations with PC Innovators!

This session, The Roots of Techno-Optimism, is an opportunity to join a conversation with Harry McCracken, veteran technology journalist and current editor for Fast Company. A self-proclaimed techno-optimist, McCracken has spent the last three decades writing about how technology and personal computing affects peoples’ lives, serving as editor at large for Time magazine, editor of PC World, and founder and editor of Technologizer. 

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Recent Aquisitions

Thanks to the generosity of our donors, our collection has continued to grow this year with several new acquisitions including an iMac G3 and iMac G4! These machines add to our collection of Apple products like the Apple Macintosh II currently on display in the “IBM Versus Apple” exhibition. 

Apple Macintosh II (1987)

In 1977 Apple produced the first ever color graphics computer, the Apple II. Ten years later the Apple Macintosh II was released with outstanding color graphics that helped transition the computer from a word- processor and game machine to other functions like photo editing. Although the Macintosh II was quite expensive for its time, the cutting edge color graphics and impressive processing speed ensured its popularity.

iMac G3 (1998)

Two decades later in 1998, Apple released the iMac G3, which later earned the nickname “Bondi Blue” for its translucent colored plastic casing. The iMac was hugely influential for its innovative design and for forgoing traditional technologies like floppy disk and serial ports. The iMac G4 replaced the G3 in 2002, soon earning nicknames like “the Dome” and “the Lamp” for its cutting-edge form. 

 iMac G4 (2002)

We are so grateful for donations like these that continue to increase the breadth, depth, and value of our collection.

Sound Bytes with Walt Mossberg

We are excited to share the first installment of our newest initiative, Sound Bytes, inspired by the incredible caliber of our Decoding the Past speakers. For this project, we ask each of our speakers the same two questions and record their responses in order to build an ongoing video archive of our speakers’ expertise, reflections, and insight.

What was your first experience with personal computing?

Veteran technology columnist Walt Mossberg described what would now be called a “text chat” with a friend as his most memorable early experience with personal computers. Listen to Walt’s response to our first question, here:

If you could add one object to our collection, what would it be and why?

Walt suggested that the first camera phone photo ever taken would be a crucial addition to our collection. 

On June 11, 1997, with the internet still in its infancy, PC pioneer Phillippe Kahn created the first “camera phone” in a Santa Cruz hospital, waiting for his daughter to be born. Driven by his desire to document this momentous occasion and a need to pass the time, Kahn wired his Motorola Startac flip phone to his Casio QV-10 digital camera, which he then connected to his laptop using speakerphone wiring ripped from his car. When baby Sophie was born, Kahn held his daughter in one hand and took her photo with the other, then instantly sent the image to over 2,000 people. 

The impact of this invention cannot be understated. The ability to capture and instantly share imagery has changed the way we interact with the world and with one another. Anyone with a camera phone may now be a journalist, publisher, consumer, artist, or documentarian. The impact of image-based social media applications is debated in the highest courts, while their user numbers continue to grow. Instagram alone claimed 1.3 billion users in 2020. 

Phillippe Kahn himself has continued to be hugely influential in the tech world. He founded several software companies including LightSurf whose picture-messaging technology is used today by Sprint, Verizon, and other major carriers. Kahn has been granted hundreds of patents for innovations related to artificial intelligence, wearable technologies, telecommunications, and motion-detection.