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The Bonehead Computer Museum™ is dedicated to preservation and broad dissemination of inelegance, awkwardness, unnecessary expense and imponderability--in a word, kludgiosity-- in the design of digital electronic computing machines and related technologies.
Acts of the Apostles and Cheap Complex Devices have contradictory things to say about the origin and meaning of the Bonehead Computer Museum. The Museum's present Curators have no opinion on these controversial matters. However, we can say the following with certainty: these photos represent artifacts gathered by legendary founding curator Keith Thompson, and are part of the Museum's permanent collection.
We, the current curators of the Museum, welcome submissions
to the (material and virtual instantiations of the) Bonehead Computer
Museum. The virtual (online) Museum will be updated periodically (when
we get around to it); the material Museum will, God willing, be taken
on the road to venues likely to attract plausible numbers of museum-goers.
. you know who you are; we're talking about geeks. . . Linux Worlds,
Geek Pride Festivals. . . stay tuned for details. . .write
us if you would like to host the museum when we go on tour.
And, in theory, the Museum will, at some point, sponsor
a competition for most egregious kludge, the winner(s) to be presented
a "Todd" award, which we envision as something like a hand holding a
pair of pliers in order to pound a screw into a piece of wood.
All entries, virtual and material, are automatic entrants
in the Todd competition. Submissions should include a description of
just how godawful and misbegotten the design is. We enshrine engineering
deliverables: hardware, software, and documentation. Marketing can go
start their own damn museum. And of course, highest priority is given
to items submitted by the device's actual designer(s).
At present the curators have only two items on their
"must have" shopping list: If a designer of the Cue Cat would be willing
to make a donation of same, we shall be forever in her or his debt.
And if, by some miracle, anyone out there has a Data General MPT 1,
we earnestly implore you to Do the Right Thing.
Material donations should be sent to Bonehead Computer
Museum, in care of Rosalita Associates, P.O. Box 2641 Vineyard Haven,
MA 02568. And you can send virtual submissions here.
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