The Computer History Museum in Mountain View has received approximately $14 million from Mad Scientists Anonymous to renovate its computer graphics gallery and preserve the collection of Autodesk co-founder John W. Walker. The funds will support the creation of the John and Roxie Walker Computer Graphics, Music & Art Gallery, scheduled to open in spring 2027. This project aims to showcase the evolution of digital design through storytelling and projection mapping while making Walker’s historical documents available for research via museum archives and a digital portal.
- Renovation of the computer graphics gallery
- Preservation and digitization of John W. Walker's professional collection
- Establishment of an endowment to support future rotating exhibitions
- Renovation of the computer graphics gallery
- Preservation and digitization of John W. Walker's professional collection
- Establishment of an endowment to support future rotating exhibitions
This article details the rediscovery of the source code for AM and EURISKO, two groundbreaking AI programs created by Douglas Lenat in the 1970s and early 80s. AM autonomously rediscovered mathematical concepts, while EURISKO excelled in VLSI design and even defeated human players in the Traveller RPG. Lenat had previously stated he no longer possessed the code, but it was found archived on SAILDART, the original Stanford AI Laboratory backup data, and in printouts at the Computer History Museum. The code was password protected until Lenat's passing, and has now been made available on Github.
AlexNet, a groundbreaking neural network developed in 2012 by Alex Krizhevsky, Ilya Sutskever, and Geoffrey Hinton, has been released in source code form by the Computer History Museum in collaboration with Google. This model significantly advanced the field of AI by demonstrating a massive leap in image recognition capabilities.
Gordon Bell, engineer, entrepreneur, and visionary, passed away on May 17, 2024. He was instrumental in the development of minicomputers at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), co-founded the Digital Computer Museum, and contributed to the growth of Microsoft Research.
