Visit the website of the museo Interim Computer Museumit’s like traveling to Atapuerca, in a computer version. Not only can you learn the history of numerous computers and operating systems from the 60s and 70s of the last century. You can also test 28 vintage equipment from 60 years agosome through emulation, and others by connecting remotely to the original computers.
It was a time when computers were only available in universities and multinationals, they cost more than a house, were operated with text commands, and did not have graphics.
If you have always wanted to play a game of chess without graphics or operate a computer that takes up an entire roomnow you have it in your hand.
The dawn of computing
As you can see the image above, in the list there are legendary computers like the PDP-10, the VAX 4000and others from DEC, Sun and other brands that reigned 60 years ago. Also operating systems that gave rise to Linux or MS-DOS, such as Unix, SunOS, Solaris, BSD, etc.
To access this original hardware and software, you must enter this website. You can now release the mouse because from now on everything works by typing commands.
As soon as you log in, it asks you for a login. You have to type the word “menu”, it will show you the list of available machines in the previous image. To change pages, press the 1 key. Each system has a letter associated with it, on the left. Press it on the keyboard to access that computer.
According to the museum, via Tom’s Hardware“These systems are a mix of emulation, hybrids, and legacy hardware running historical operating systems.” But when accessing them it does not indicate whether what you are using is an emulator, or remote access to real hardware.
Once inside a system, in most cases the only thing you will see is a prompt: a cursor waiting for you to type commands. So you must know how that operating system works. In others, small help instructions appear. For example, in MissPiggy, if you type “Games”, you will be taken to a list of games.
Keep in mind that the initiative has been so successful that it is saturated. In my case, it took me more than half an hour to enter. You have to be patient.
It is worth exploring these prehistoric computers. Multics, for example, is an operating system created in 1964 by MIT that is considered the great inspiration for Unix, which in turn inspired Linux. TOPS-20 computers formed the ARPANET network, which later became the Internet. The origin of computing, at your fingertips.