GoKawiilComputer Museum of America collection resurfaces at San Diego State University after 21 years
A donor grant received in summer 2025 has enabled organizers to begin indexing the long-stored collection of the former Computer Museum of America and San Diego Computer Museum, which has sat in the basement of SDSU's Love Library for over two decades. The archive includes not just vintage computers and hardware but magazines, newsletters, software, books and manuals documenting the rise of the Information Age. Organizers are also launching fundraising and marketing efforts to raise awareness of the collection's existence and value.
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This trove is considered one of the largest repositories of Computer Revolution artifacts in the world, offering researchers across sociology, history, engineering and anthropology a rare, comprehensive record of how digital technology reshaped daily life. Without funding and cataloging, such collections risk remaining inaccessible or forgotten despite their historical significance.
- A 2025 donor grant is funding indexing of a long-stored tech history collection at SDSU.
- The archive spans hardware, software, magazines, and manuals from the Computer Revolution era.
- Organizers hope the collection will support future interdisciplinary research on technology's societal impact.
Core Memory: A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers (book) — If the idea of a basement full of Computer Revolution artifacts fires your imagination, this photo book brings that hardware into the light with striking large-format portraits of legendary machines. Mark Richards' photography and John Alderman's text make it a browsable companion to the kind of collection the Computer Museum of America is now indexing.
See Core Memory: A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers (book) on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.Source: computer-museum.org, 2026-08-31
Published there as: “The Computer Museum of America reclamation project”
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