Aesthetic of Homebrew and Early Computing Literature
This past weekend I went to the Living Computers: Museum + Lab in Seattle, WA, to see their Ada Lovelace birthday party celebration. This was a great event to celebrate the legacy of Ada Lovelace (who would have turned 201 last week!) as a pioneer of computing.
While at the museum I also had a chance to check out their recently renovated collection of vintage computing hardware and memorabilia. Something that grabbed my attention was the impressive collection of early computing literature, like books and magazines from the 70’s and 80’s. I found the artwork for a lot of this memorabilia had a fascinating aesthetic that felt like a bit of 60’s counter-culture, 70’s zine and punk culture, and 80’s technology thrown in a blender. Below are some photos of memorabilia I took to capture some of this aesthetic:
Awesome tagline at the top of Computer Lib’s first edition: “You can and must understand computers NOW.”
Awesome history of early Microsoft logos on the shelf above. I like the blue binder logo the most, it looks like Microsoft meets Metallica.
As a bonus here are few more fun pictures from the visit:
The best way to enjoy using vintage computers is with period correct clothing!
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My eyes and hands are sore just thinking about typing in the columns of numbers from one of those magazines just to get a lame game I’d play twice. Thanks!
My eyes and hands are sore just thinking about typing in the columns of numbers from one of those magazines just to get a lame game I’d play twice. Thanks!