Meet the machines
Start with six landmark systems—from a PDP-10 built for symbolic computing to a massively parallel black cube.
Open the collection →A living archive of computing history
The Machines Are still running.
Sit at the keyboard. Hear the fans turn. Log in from across the world. We preserve computer history as something you can use—not something sealed behind glass.
OBJECT 0001 THINKING MACHINES / CONNECTION MACHINE 2
6,000artefacts being catalogued
ONLINEhistoric systems via SDF
HANDS-ONvisits by appointment
Choose an access point
Computing history has no single entrance.
Log in to the past
Reach a rotating collection of vintage computing environments through SDF's public remote systems menu.
Enter the remote lab →Use one in person
Book a visit to the workshop in Tukwila, meet the caretakers, and put your own hands on computing history.
Plan a visit →Selected objects
Not obsolete.
Unfinished.
A collection is more than a list of model numbers. Each machine holds a way of thinking—about scale, access, intelligence and who computers were built for.
Connection Machine 2
A landmark parallel supercomputer whose thousands of red lights made computation visible.
MIT-MC.ARPA
A PDP-10 environment tied to the development of ITS, MACSYMA and early collaborative computing.
IBM 1620 CADET
An accessible scientific computer remembered by the affectionate joke: “Can't Add, Doesn't Even Try.”
Preservation protocol
“A computer is not understood when it is silent.”
Hardware, software, documentation and the muscle memory of using them belong together. ICM restores that whole experience and shares it through exhibits, workshops and remote access.
Help keep a machine running →