IBM’s Hursley museum is a homage to technology past

Alan Martin June 19, 2017

Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting IBM at their Hursley base. Not the easiest place to get to, for someone who doesn’t drive, but undoubtedly worth the trip. Not only is the campus unlike anything you get to see in London…

…but Hursley House – the grade ii listed 18th century mansion at the heart of the estate – is home to a museum of IBM’s heritage dating all the way back to 1885’s computing scale.

Fortunately, I was armed with a camera and an extremely patient guide, so feel free to click through the gallery below to see the kind of treats the museum houses. Highlights include: [gallery:2]

A wearable PC that didn’t catch on way before Google Glass repeated the feat.[gallery:9]

The Thinkpad 701, with its butterfly keyboard design that would pop out of the small frame.

[gallery:13]

A series of IBM tablets, from way before the iPad was a thing.

I’m pretty sure that if I’d stayed long enough, I’d have been able to track down my family’s first PC: a cutting edge 486-DX2 clocked at a whopping 66MHz.

So have a look through the gallery. If you can correctly identify every single model then you really should win some kind of award…[gallery:18]