In the beginning, computer were big, complicated machines that fill entire rooms. Computers were hard to use. Punch cards and disk-packs stored data. Telephone lines connected terminals to distant computer systems. Relive the Colossal experience of "big iron" in our climate-controlled computer room, featuring mainframe computers from the 1960s and 1970s.

Just as bulky as a modern refrigerator, minicomputers prove that size is relative. These computers came to popularity in the mid-1960s when the Digital Equipment Corporation introduced a series of “small” and inexpensive systems with real-time, interactive computing. Today, we love to challenge them to games of chess.

Before computers became “personal,” they were called microcomputers. Part of the movement to make computing more accessible and not just for business, government, or academics – microcomputers inspired Paul Allen and Bill Gates to create Microsoft, allowed a pair of guys named Steve to form Apple, and awoke a sleeping giant called IBM.

Sometimes you can't bring everything completely back from the dead. That's where emulations come in – simulations of computers, terminals, and operating systems – which allow users to run old programs as they would in a physical version of the machine. To view or download any emulations created by Living Computers, check out our github page.