System Source Computer Museum — Attraction in Maryland

I'm a computer scientist and this tour was probably one of the most amazing things I've experienced in my entire life. I loved literally every part of the it! Brenden was awesome and I'm unbelievably thankful to him for taking 6.5 hours our of his weekend to show us around. To say that he was knowledgeable about everything in the museum would be a huge understatement.

I have visited the CHM in Mountain View, CA many times and I have always enjoyed my visits. What is missing in these trips, though, is firsthand experience with any of the machines. Everything is powered off and behind glass. It's very hard to understand the significance of a computer or technology without experiencing it for yourself firsthand. My favorite part of the System Source museum was the hands-on nature. I truly felt like if I had a question about any computer in the collection Brenden would have booted it up just to let me experience it for myself. My girlfriend even got to write her first BASIC program on a Commodore VIC-20.

My favorite thing on the tour was getting to run one of the test programs on the DEC PDP-8. I think the coolest Exhibit was the Tic-Tac-Toe exhibit. That was incredibly well put together and quite...

A few different museum curators brought together in one space create this huge and epic museum. Unlike many other museums, this place offers a very hands-on approach to their displays when possible, with many of the displays in working order!

The staff are incredibly friendly and laid-back. Even though I arrived at 4:30 just half an hour before closing, Brendan gladly gave me a wonderful tour that I thoroughly enjoyed. I felt so welcome and impressed by The Collection that I came back to help volunteer my time in preparing for an open house the next few days.

There were so many epic displays that span from mechanical to tube to silicon compters. Printing presses, to Apollo era mainframes, to cray supercomputers, to DEC PDP, to the first home computers (such as Apple, Commodore, IBM PC).

If you like vintage electronics of any sort, you'll...

Brendan was a great tour guide, and he really knows his stuff! As another review said, much of the displays are functional and interactive, which is awesome. This museum and Bloop (his own collections/exhibits in the museum) are a passion project for him, so I got a top-notch one-on-one 5 hour tour for the low price of free!

Donations are very much appreciated, though, and are more interesting than an admission fee, so I brought some old software CDs as thanks. I've since remembered my attic full of old computer stuff that probably belongs in a museum, so I'll be visiting again to learn more computer and video game history!

Oh, and they have some cool merchandise too - check it out in the...