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Go on to Dispatch 6e

A visit to the USS Hornet

Go back to Dispatch 6c

The California Academy of Science

Dispatch 6d

The Oakland Museum

8 Feb 2012

I tried to strike up a conversation with this woman, but she seemed very shy. It's ironic considering how she was dressed.

But the area that intrigued us the most was the section on old computers and electronics.

We are actually old enough to remember using or really wanting (but not able to afford) a lot of this stuff.

This is an Osborne 1, billed as the first portable computer, and in many ways it was. I remember seeing these advertised and I dreamed of having one, or something like it, but $1800 was way too much for me in those days. Even then the tiny screen was a bit off putting. It's nestled in between the two floppy drives. At 5 inches that screen is just a bit larger than the display on my phone today, but at 24 pounds it's a lot heavier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_1

The venerable HP-35, considered the world's first scientific pocket calculator from about 1970. I carried a similar model (HP-45) in college.

LCD displays were not yet available and the LED display tended to run down the battery pretty fast so there was a lot on angst about the possibility of running out of power during an exam.

Go on to Dispatch 6e

A visit to the USS Hornet

Go back to Dispatch 6c

The California Academy of Science

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Carl and I crossed the bay and visited the Oakland Museum

They do things differently here. For example they put the name on the bottom of the sign so you don't see it until you get close. And they make sure the letters don't fit right. This makes the sign “Artistic”.

The museum is a composite containing some art, science and history. Being a composite you would not think they would do any particular especially very well, but I must say, I did find some art here that I could really appreciate.

For example this clever depiction of homonyms, bare and bear.

Most museums won't let you sit on the displays. But they did allow us to sit on Huey Newtons chair.

Oh man we used to drool over this kind of stuff; but being short on money we never really got into it that much, which may be just as well because it was obsolete almost as fast as it was introduced.