On the same topic, a comical film from the sixties shows a harried programmer rushing to run his program before he has to meet his girlfriend. Using the early cumbersome and time-consuming programming system, the "hacker" fails hears a voice telling him to try the new system, in which a programmer interacts directly with the computer to write his code. Using this system, he writes the program easily, it runs perfectly, and in the end he meets the girl.

Exhibits like these are likely to impress the computer hacker, who will feel for the hardships of the early computer programmers and appreciate the p2ogress that has been made. The computer illiterate person, whose dealings with computers are limited to the use of an automatic teller machine, however, may fail to grasp such subtle advances.

In the Beginning

Computer pioneers at the Digital Equipment Corporation in Marlboro, Mass, started the museum in 1971 because, museum officials explain, these nostalgic executives felt a responsibility to preserve the remnants of the heroic days of computers. First nothing more than a jumbled collection of old computer machinery in the company headquarters, the collection became, in 1979, the Digital Computer Museum, whose first visitors came to see this smaller exhibit of the early stumbling of the Information Age.

In an effort to represent the industry as a whole and reach a larger audience, the museum declared itself a non-profit organization, changed its name, then abandoned its offices at Digital to move too its present location on Museum Wharf.

Since leaving the Digital nest, the museum staff, like the visitors, has diversified. The people behind the today's exhibits are not the computer specialists one might imagine. In fact, many of the workers at the museum, most of them just out of college, had little previous experience with computers or with the design of museums.

Starting with little knowledge about computers, Stelling supervised the conception, design and construction of all exhibits. "When I took AS11 [Applied Sciences 11. "Introduction to Computing" I at Harvard, I was totally paranoid about computers," she says, "One of the reasons I got involved was to help people overcome their fears about computers. They're just tools," she adds.

Stelling believes that the relative inexperience of the museum developers was no hindrance to their task. "A lot of people came in here, really worked hard, and had great ideas," she says.

One such neophyte is Gregory W. Welch '85-6, one of several Harvard students to work at the museum. Though he had minimal previous experience of computers, the History of Science major took last years off to design several exhibits on computing in the sixties.

There is enough to keep the museum developers busy. In particular, some of the exhibits were unfinished at the time of the inauguration, the museum's spacious location leaves room for expansion, and the fast-moving computer industry will make some of the current exhibits obsolete a year from now. In addition to the museum's permanent collection. Stelling plans to establish a traveling exhibit about computer issues and history. The museum also has plans to develop jointly with the Boston Computer Society a "computer discovery center" to help the general public understand computers in a relaxed atmosphere.