Museums and the History of Computing Objects, Narratives and Practice

List of figures viii List of contributors ix Acknowledgments xvi Introduction: museums and the history of computing 1 SIMONE NATALE PART I Lives narrated through computer history 11 1 Unseen connections: exhibiting the global stories of cellular telephony at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History 13 JOSHUA BELL 2 Lives on shelves: constructing histories of computer in the museum store 24 SIMONA CASONATO Provocation no. 1: imparting the history of 'intangible things' 35 MAI SUGIMOTO PART II The life inscribed on computer technology 37 3 Restorations, replicas, and emulations in a museum of computing 39 MARTIN CAMPBELL-KELLY AND MARK PRIESTLEY4 Social media enters the museum: collecting WeChat at the Victoria and Albert Museum 49 NATALIE KANE, CORINNA GARDNER, AND JUHEE PARK Provocation no. 2: all of this belongs to us 59 ANDREA LIPPS PART III Living computing history collections 61 5 Mediators, media, and meaning: curating digital objects at the Science Museum 63 TILLY BLYTH AND RACHEL BOON 6 Unsettling the narrative: quantum computing in museum environments 74 PETRINA FOTI Provocation no. 3: why is the computer different? 82 KIMON KERAMIDAS PART IV Lived practice of computing history 85 7 The CHM stack: experimentation for digital and computing heritage 87 DAVID C. BROCK, HANSEN HSU, DAG SPICER, AND MARC WEBER 8 Beyond point and click: calling out expediency in museums' histories of computing 98 LISA McGERTY Provocation no. 4: decolonizing computing histories in museums 108 LARA RATNARAJA Index 111