One thing I would like to see mentioned is that some people did donate valuable computers to the museum, presumably because they were told it was a museum and now that PDP10 for example is being sold for cash.
While they may not have tracked every single item that was donated, if it is not really a museum, returning certain items should be considered, if desired by the person who made the donation.
> We are looking for the following systems and peripherals for the Living Computer Museum in order to restore them and make them available to the public.
It's definitely a deception if they were donated having been told that.
Maybe this is a good place to call attention to the Dutch Home Computer Museum (https://www.homecomputermuseum.nl/en/), who did place their collection in a separate foundation.
I never really thought about this before, but I guess it's true that if you aren't careful your donation to a museum is really just gifting something to a rich guy.
The article says it cost more than ten million dollars a year to run. That's a hard pull for another institution or a new public subscription to cover.
It wasn't like those other museums because it did a huge amount of work to be a living computer museum. Getting and keeping ancient systems up is expensive. I think the best thing we could hope for would have been the machines to end up as static, dead exhibits like a conventional museum. Better than nothing but missing the spark that made LCM great. That would also at least have kept the door open to re-starting the effort in the future.
It's a shame that Vulcan just auctioned off the assets. Did the really need the cash? It could have been donated to another museum etc.
I'm not a millionaire. I'd do what I can. But you know, there's people with hundreds of millions reading this. Multiple of them.
And the $10 million deficit isn't some requirement for a roomful of old computers. It could be run on Amazon property for instance, probably for 1/20th that.
We shouldn't be forced into the stupid solution of liquidating a museum due to a willful failure of intelligence.
While they may not have tracked every single item that was donated, if it is not really a museum, returning certain items should be considered, if desired by the person who made the donation.