The History of Computing Auctioned at Christie's

Larry Groebe writes "The most amazing unified collection of books, papers, and similar material on the history of computing is about to go on sale at Christie's auction house. Want a signed copy of 'Rossum's Universal Robots?' Original papers on the Eniac? Alan Turning's original proof of universal computability? Letters from Charles Babbage himself? It's in there, to anyone with (a whole lot of) money. Check out the estimated price on the 1974 journal article by Vinton Cerf describing IP addressing. It's increased in value in the past 30 years...just a bit."

Worth noting

[rackhamh]

Isn't it interesting that in an era when digitization and electronic archival are increasingly important, memorabilia such as this is so highly valued?

Re:Historical Documents Deserve A Prominent Place.

[Usquebaugh]

Yep,

put them in a museum but how about PDF or PS copies on line. I want to read this stuff but not at the price being asked.

I wouldn't pay a dime...

[HungSoLow]

for "Alan Turning's original proof of universal computability"

On the other hand, if they had Turing's, I would definitly fork over the cash.

Re:Historical Documents Deserve A Prominent Place.

[mOoZik]

I think we need a good computer museum. We have a few, but most of them are just a collection of old, dingy machines for one's drooling-over. We need something that has machines, documents, letters, books, components, video interviews, chip prototypes, interactive sections, and so on and so forth! But these will most likely go to a private collection, though museums often bid in these auctions.

Re:Intrigued, but annoyed

[Anonymous Coward]

It is probably true that this collection won't be bought by one individual. But many institutions do buy this sort of material in extremely large quantities, or they are bought by individuals to be later donated to such institutions.

Furthermore, there are Rare Book Libraries all over the place who already have a lot of this kind of material (i happen to work in one of them). That means if the material does get scattered to a certain extent, the material is going to be added to these kind of collections that already exist. This is not the whole history of computing for auctioned at Christies as the title suggests but merely one small piece of it.

Re:I am annoyed as well

[RedWizzard]

I agree it's a shame this material will become scattered all around, but the thing that bothers me the most is that much of this stuff will end up in a bunch of different private collections. Stuff like this should be kept together in a safe place after making digital copies and publishing them on the internet to be shared with everybody.

Why? Most of these lots are just first edition printings of academic papers. There's nothing especially unique about the content of these copies, and in most cases the text is already available on the net. It's not like these are the only copies of the works.

Re:Historical Documents Deserve A Prominent Place.

[syousef]

What use is putting original papers behind glass in a museum? You can't read them like that. The artifacts aren't nearly as important as the ideas, both from a historical perspective and a scientific one. Make sure copies are available for download on the net and that people know where to look for them instead.

Re:Historical Documents Deserve A Prominent Place.

[dabigpaybackski]

Ahem, gentlemen, I suggested the Smithsonian because it is a prominent and extremely well-funded American museum that might be amenable to sponsering an international exhibit of this kind. I had not intended the suggestion as a slight to other nationalities, but being the bigoted American cunt that I am, it was the first idea that came to mind. But to tell the truth, the guy posting below is basically correct about modern computers being of U.S. and U.K. origin, having been employed with staggering success in the early days to crack the Axis codes. And as for the PC, that is indisputably an American innovation.

buy the catalog

[subtropolis]

i have no connection w/ christies whatsoever. But i suggest buying the catalog if this interests you. I had a friend a few years back who lent me his catalog for a very comprehensive auction of Soviet space program stuff. Like full suits. 1:1 models of lunar landers. Some very cool stuff. The catalog was well put together, with lots of large images. Definitely worth the 30 bones.

why did i ever give it back to him?

history of computers...

[torrents]

wouldn't it make sense to put it on ebay?

Why?

[J. Random Luser]

Being plain nosey I scratched around various blogs and the owners' site, but I don't see any rational explanation for this sale. If Jeremy has fallen on bad times and needs the cash I can forgive him, but this collection is a significant fraction of the sum total of human knowledge, and thus belongs to all mankind. Dispersing it to the four winds is usually the lot of soul-less deceased estate executors.

Re:Worth noting

[pxpt]

It seems that the more technologically advanced the civilisation - the harder it is to actually access knowledge in said civilisation. Books might be old fashioned but hey, at least you can attempt to read them when the electricity supply fails (at night time you can use candles!!!).

The window of opportunity for getting at knowledge on various media is decreasing exponentionally. For example: books can still be accessed (ever since they were invented essentially). However, nowadays it is getting harder to get at stuff on some forms of magnetic tape. And if you think that knowledge on DVD's is safe then what about when Blueray Discs become popular(if at all) - will you still keep those old DVD players going (and would you be able to keep them going).

It seems that we are forever cursed to keep on copying our knowledge to newer forms of media in ever decreasing timescales - somethings got to give...