Seattle's Living Computers Museum Logs Off For Good (geekwire.com) 38
Kurt Schlosser reports via GeekWire: Living Computers Museum + Labs, the Seattle institution created by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen as a hands-on showcase for rare computing technology and interactive displays, will not reopen, more than four years after closing just ahead of the pandemic. Allen's estate, which has been managing and winding down his vast array of holdings since his death in 2018, confirmed to GeekWire that the 12-year-old museum is closed for good. The estate also announced Tuesday that some key pieces from Allen's personal collection of computer artifacts, displayed over the years at Living Computers, will be auctioned by Christie's as part of a broader sale of various Allen items later this year.
As directed by Allen's wishes, proceeds from the sale of any items will go to charitable causes. Allen's sister Jody Allen is the executor of his estate and for several years has been selling pieces of it, ranging from Seattle's Cinerama movie theater, the Everett, Wash.-based Flying Heritage and Combat Armor Museum, Vulcan Productions, Stratolaunch, the superyacht Octopus, and more. The estate previously teamed up with Christie's for a November 2022 auction of 155 masterpieces from Allen's extensive art collection. It was the world's most successful single-owner fine art auction ever, raising a record $1.62 billion.
The new auction, titled "Gen One: Innovations from the Paul G. Allen Collection," is billed as "a celebration of first-generation technologies and the pioneering minds behind them." The event will feature more than 150 items in three separate auctions, including "Firsts: The History of Computing," an online sale closing Sept. 12. This auction pays homage to Allen's role shaping the modern computing landscape. A highlight of the sale is a computer that Allen helped restore and on which he worked, a DEC PDP-10: KI-10. Built in 1971, it's the first computer that both Allen and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates ever used prior to founding Microsoft. It's estimated to fetch $30,000 to $50,000. Christie's said details about other computers and related items from Allen's collection will be shared this summer.
The other two auctions of Allen property include "Pushing Boundaries: Ingenuity," a live auction on Sept. 10 that will feature items intended to tell the story of scientific and technological achievements spanning centuries. The top item is a 1939 signed letter from Albert Einstein to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt credited as the impetus behind the establishment of the Manhattan Project. It's estimated to fetch $4 million to $6 million. The third auction is "Over the Horizon: Art of the Future," an online auction closing Sept. 12, showcasing art devoted to interplanetary travel. A sale highlight is Chelsey Bonestell's "Saturn as Seen from Titan," circa 1952, and estimated to fetch $30,000 to $50,000.
As directed by Allen's wishes, proceeds from the sale of any items will go to charitable causes. Allen's sister Jody Allen is the executor of his estate and for several years has been selling pieces of it, ranging from Seattle's Cinerama movie theater, the Everett, Wash.-based Flying Heritage and Combat Armor Museum, Vulcan Productions, Stratolaunch, the superyacht Octopus, and more. The estate previously teamed up with Christie's for a November 2022 auction of 155 masterpieces from Allen's extensive art collection. It was the world's most successful single-owner fine art auction ever, raising a record $1.62 billion.
The new auction, titled "Gen One: Innovations from the Paul G. Allen Collection," is billed as "a celebration of first-generation technologies and the pioneering minds behind them." The event will feature more than 150 items in three separate auctions, including "Firsts: The History of Computing," an online sale closing Sept. 12. This auction pays homage to Allen's role shaping the modern computing landscape. A highlight of the sale is a computer that Allen helped restore and on which he worked, a DEC PDP-10: KI-10. Built in 1971, it's the first computer that both Allen and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates ever used prior to founding Microsoft. It's estimated to fetch $30,000 to $50,000. Christie's said details about other computers and related items from Allen's collection will be shared this summer.
The other two auctions of Allen property include "Pushing Boundaries: Ingenuity," a live auction on Sept. 10 that will feature items intended to tell the story of scientific and technological achievements spanning centuries. The top item is a 1939 signed letter from Albert Einstein to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt credited as the impetus behind the establishment of the Manhattan Project. It's estimated to fetch $4 million to $6 million. The third auction is "Over the Horizon: Art of the Future," an online auction closing Sept. 12, showcasing art devoted to interplanetary travel. A sale highlight is Chelsey Bonestell's "Saturn as Seen from Titan," circa 1952, and estimated to fetch $30,000 to $50,000.
interesting history, pile of junk (Score:2)
The history is interesting and seeing the old gear can be fun. The audience for this stuff is limited, the stuff will just become something for the next executor to sell off.
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You should read up on the PDP-10 line. It was used in early AI research and the prompt in every piece of Cisco gear is based on the TOPS20 operating system.
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You should read up on the PDP-10 line. It was used in early AI research and the prompt in every piece of Cisco gear is based on the TOPS20 operating system.
That interesting. But seeing an old computer in a display case isn't.
Re:interesting history, pile of junk (Score:5, Informative)
They weren’t in display cases they actually ran them. Hence the “living” in the name.
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It's estimated to fetch $30,000 to $50,000
Guess I'll need to start buying an extra lotttery ticket or two.
Missed out on my chance to use a PDP-10, back in the day. Virginia Tech bought a Multics system instead.
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Took up about a quarter of the basement of the home I had at the time. Now sits in storage
I'm not familiar with TOPS20- but I do log into Ciscos daily (IOS, NXOS, and the bizarre fucking terminals of their EDFAs)
I don't see the resemblance. Wonder if that's more myth than fact.
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Dude they had a half working Alto. I hear they fixed it but never saw it work, Sure, limited audience but a lot of the stuff there will be of genuine historical interest 100 years from now. Some of it I doubt could be maintained anywhere other than the LCM
The rich are very different from you and me (Score:4, Informative)
A friend of a friend worked for Paul Allen, back in the day. Allen had residences all over the world (guess that's obvious). This person's primary job was to fly to a residence a few days before Allen was scheduled to arrive, then basically rotate the displayed art around so he'd see be able to look at different things than he had the previous time he stayed there.
Nice work, if you can get it.
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He had a residence on the beach in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.
It was empty 99% of the time, so some homeless people broke in and lived there for several months.
Once they were evicted, he hired a permanent security guard, who was paid to live in a luxury house on the beach.
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he hired a permanent security guard, who was paid to live in a luxury house on the beach.
Did he have a big mustache and wear Hawaiian shirts [fanpop.com]?
(Okay, okay, I know Magnum was an investigator not a security guard...)
this is just Paul Allen's stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
far out his sister/executors does not give a damn about it and thinks selling it is the way to go rather than donating to a museum... great ethics
Re:this is just Paul Allen's stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of items were donated to the museum because they thought, hey this place is run by a billionaire it should be pretty safe. The man liked the machines enough to open a public museum and his family now can't wait to auction it all off.
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Why give when you can auction?
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Still a lot of that stuff was one of a kind or given out of personal collections. With the closure of the museum at least some things will eventually be lost when the buyers keel over and their heirs find weird balls of wire and busted terminals, probably not that much different than other much less important pieces stored nearby.
Maybe not. Dunno. "Concerning" as they say.
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Sad day (Score:2, Interesting)
LCM used to run actual machines people could log onto and use, it wasn't a "no touch" museum. Paul Allen was pretty active in setting up exhibits right up until his death. For some reason his sister and the rest of the vultures aren't rich enough already and sold off his other items like his aviation museum and large art collection. You'd thinking being the family of one of the founders of Microsoft would be wealthy enough, but looks like I'm wrong.
Demonstrating old tech is awesome for people that haven't
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For some reason his sister and the rest of the vultures aren't rich enough already
All of the proceeds are going to charity, so this won't make them any richer.
They just have different interests.
I can sympathize. I don't have much interest in antique computers either. I'm much more interested in the new stuff.
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Re: Sad day (Score:2)
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I don't believe that for a fucking second. They're holding onto the Seahawks because it's a cash cow. Museums about airplanes and computers are not.
This will primarily go into private collections (Score:2, Interesting)
Paul Allen had no interest in his place in history, he just collected this stuff to feed his ego. If he wanted to have a legacy other then throwing chain in public he could have easily set up and funded a real museum that would preserve his collection, and even gone on to support the study of
Re:This will primarily go into private collections (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps Allen himself will be forgotten, except for the clip of his chair throwing tantrum. That would be the appropriate as far as I'm concerned.
I think you're confusing Paul Allen with Steve Ballmer.
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hahah threw me for a loop. "Throwing chain in public" made me think it was some euphemism for public masturbation.
Thought I was learning a whole lot of new information about paul lmao.
Re:This will primarily go into private collections (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps Allen himself will be forgotten, except for the clip of his chair throwing tantrum. That would be the appropriate as far as I'm concerned.
Don't you mean Steve Balmer's chair throwing tantrum?
Re:This will primarily go into private collections (Score:5, Insightful)
Paul Allen had no interest in his place in history, he just collected this stuff to feed his ego. If he wanted to have a legacy other then throwing chain in public he could have easily set up and funded a real museum that would preserve his collection, and even gone on to support the study of early computing technology into the future.
This was a real museum. It was open to the public. If it was intended to feed his ego why would be publicly display it and even run vintage hardware 24/7 with accounts?
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Right. I wanna be really mad about this. I do but like I can't say I find fault. Just feel fortunate that I went there several times I guess.
Jody Allen (Score:2)
The wicked witch of Seattle strikes again!
Charitable causes (Score:3)
As directed by Allen's wishes, proceeds from the sale of any items will go to charitable causes.
Call me overly cynical, but every time I hear "charitable cause", I think about tax credits and other wonderful tricks used by the rich to stay rich. I understand that museums generally need to be sustainable and are run like businesses, but... what exactly is charitable about shutting down a museum and selling off everything?
Re: Charitable causes (Score:2)
I wondered why I couldn't connect to log on. (Score:2)
There is a lesson in this (Score:3)
Unless you are as wealthy as Paul Allen and can do things like create endowments and Trusts to manage them you can't have a legacy of 'things' and even if you are a Paul Allen there is no certainty and sooner or later it will come to an end anyway when the right political, or natural events run their course.
The only thing you can have is people. You'd better leave people behind who care about the things you care about and have interests in things you had interest in, if you want those things to continue. Otherwise what happens is your heirs or some probate judge is left with a heap of 'old junk' they don't understand don't know how to value, and don't care enough about to hunt down the people who might care and value it. The same things goes for any field of study or research you might have been engaged in. If you did not share it, did not get others exited about it, it is only going to be forgotten and abandon.
Evil (Score:3)