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LOADING MUSEUM ARCHIVES . . .

CLICK OR PRESS ANY KEY TO SKIP
GOLDEN, COLORADO  •  MILE HIGH SILICON

COLORADO COMPUTER
HISTORY MUSEUM

★ EST. 1979 ★ WHERE OLD BITS NEVER DIE ★

★ WELCOME, PROGRAMMER ★

Step inside three floors of beige plastic, blinking LEDs, and 9-track tape. We keep the machines running, the keyboards clacky, and the fans loud — just the way you remember them.

From room-sized mainframes to the humble cassette drive, the Colorado Computer History Museum preserves the high-plains story of computing: the garages, the labs, the basement BBSs, and the people who wired it all together.

TODAY AT THE MUSEUM

    checking the front desk...

VISITORS SERVED THIS SESSION:

FEATURED EXHIBIT

NEW! FLOOR 1 — ROOM 101

THE MAINFRAME ROOM

Walk between two working cabinets, listen to the tape reels spin up, and read the hand-written logbooks left behind by the night shift. Cold air, warm tubes, big machines.

FLOOR 2 — ROOM 204

HOME MICRO HALL OF FAME

Forty years of bedroom computers, each one powered up and playable. Yes, the joysticks work. Yes, the springs are tired.

FLOOR 3 — VAULT

THE TAPE VAULT

Climate-controlled shelving holding thousands of reels, cassettes, and cartridges — plus our ongoing mission to read the unreadable.

► PERMANENT EXHIBITS

Five galleries. One very long extension cord. Docents on hand every afternoon for demonstrations.

FLOOR 1

THE MAINFRAME ROOM

Big iron, punch cards, and a card-sorter you are welcome to crank. Demonstrations daily at 11:00 and 3:00.

FLOOR 1

PUNCH CARD PARLOR

Learn to keypunch your own card and take it home in a paper sleeve. Mistakes are expected and treasured.

FLOOR 2

8-BIT HOMEBREW LAB

A working bench of hand-soldered machines, wire-wrap boards, and a breadboard that has been troubleshooting itself since 1982.

FLOOR 2

FLOPPY DISK WALL

Every format we could find, mounted floor-to-ceiling as art. Includes the 8-inch monsters and one lonely 12-inch platter.

FLOOR 2

BULLETIN BOARD BOOTH

Sit at an acoustic coupler and dial into our in-house BBS. Post a message. Mind the phone line, it is very loud.

HOT! FLOOR 3

SILICON PEAKS

How a mountain state ended up full of chip fabs, storage labs, and instrument shops — told through schematics, ID badges, and coffee mugs.

★ COLORADO COMPUTING TIMELINE

A hand-drawn walk through the decades. Exhibit copy is draft text pending review by our collections committee.

  • 1957
    The first tape drives arrive. Government labs along the Front Range start storing weather and physics data on magnetic reel.
  • 1965
    Instrument shops go digital. Small electronics firms in the foothills begin shipping test gear driven by logic boards instead of needles.
  • 1972
    Card decks on the prairie. University computer centers run overnight batch jobs while students queue at the keypunch window.
  • 1976
    A homebrew club meets in a Denver garage. Eight people, one oscilloscope, and a plan to build a computer from a kit.
  • 1979
    Our collection begins. A retired engineer rescues a decommissioned cabinet from a scrapyard and stores it in a barn near Golden.
  • 1982
    The BBS era lights up. Dial-up message boards bloom across the metro area, one 300-baud modem at a time.
  • 1986
    The barn becomes a museum. Volunteers lay carpet, paint the ceiling, and open the doors to the public. Admission: two dollars.
  • 1989
    Storage goes big. Local labs push tape cartridge capacity higher, and our archivists start hoarding every format in sight.

► PLAN YOUR VISIT

INFODETAILS
ADDRESS1420 Silicon Gulch Road, Golden, CO 80401
HOURSTue–Sun, 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM  |  Closed Mondays & major holidays
ADMISSIONAdults $8  •  Kids & Seniors $5  •  Members FREE  •  Cash or check only
DEMOSMainframe demo 11:00 & 3:00  •  Keypunch clinic 1:00
PHONE(303) 555-1979
PARKINGFree lot behind the building. Buses welcome, please call ahead.

GETTING HERE

We are two blocks off the main drag, look for the building with the giant beige tower and the flashing green sign. The front door is on the west side, under the marquee.

ACCESSIBILITY

Elevator to all three floors, wheelchair-accessible restrooms, and step-free entry at the west door. Loaner stools available at every demo bench. Service animals welcome.

GROUP TOURS

Schools, scout troops, and user groups: book a docent-led tour at least two weeks ahead. Field-trip rate is $3 per student.

FREE PARKING FAMILY FRIENDLY VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

★ DOCENT TERMINAL v1.0

Type HELP and press ENTER. This terminal is a simulation of our front-desk reference computer.

C:\CMC80\> REFERENCE TERMINAL — ONLINE — 300 BAUD
C:\GUEST>

GUESTBOOK

Sign in, tell us about the first computer you ever touched.

ARCADE ALLEY — INSERT COIN

CREDITS: 0

The cabinet hums patiently. It smells like dust and victory.