USA Today says the Computer History Museum in Mountain View is the "Valley's answer to the Smithsonian." Now, Los Gatos, Saratoga and Cupertino residents can experience the world's largest collection of computer artifacts for free on Nov. 17 and 18 during a special community days event.

Among what visitors can see is the 26,000-square-foot exhibit, "Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing," that features more than 1,000 artifacts. A multi-media display also tells the back-stories and breakthroughs that led to the devices we can't live without today.

Los Gatos resident Ike Nassi was one of the museum's founding trustees and remains an active board member today. "You'll have a surprisingly great time when you visit," Nassi said. "It blows people away. Today, it's very much a first class museum. It's really become a destination in Silicon Valley."

While at the museum, visitors can see the first Internet router, the first Google search engine, early Cray supercomputers and a SAGE system--a missile tracking system that was in use during the Cold War. "It's the first computer I've ever seen that has an ashtray in it," Nassi said.


Then there's the quirky Honeywell Kitchen Computer from the 1969 Neiman Marcus holiday catalogue. "They didn't sell any of them, but it came with an apron and a cutting board," Nassi said.


"What we're trying to do is not only preserve the artifacts, but also build a community around them. Without that, things aren't going to survive," Nassi said. The things that have survived bring back memories for many museum-goers. "Just about everybody who visits sees something personal and says, 'Oh, I worked on that' or 'I had one of those,' " Nassi said.

In addition to rare artifacts, visitors can take a Silicon Valley history "tour" on the Google Liquid Galaxy platform--a cluster of computers running Google Earth, Maps and Street View in a visitor-controlled screen environment.

And for kids young and old, there are Pong and Spacewar games to play. In addition, visitors will receive a 15 percent discount at the museum's Cloud Cafe and new museum store.
