On Sep 14, 2005, at 9:35 AM, John Francis wrote:
On Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 11:10:42AM +0200, Peter Lacus wrote:
Silicon Valley Tour - we'd like to see some of the most important
computer companies, namely Apple Computer, Sun Microsystems,
Hewlett-Packard and of course Palo Alto Research Center where all
this
began. Yes indeed, we are something like computer geeks. :-)
Can I suggest the Computer History museum might be worth a look?
<URL://http:www.computerhistory.org>
(Ignore the fact that it says you're only allowed in on Wednesdays
and Fridays; my wife works there, so something could be arranged)
The Computer History museum is great.
There's nothing to see at PARC, or most of the Sun and HP
campuses ... they're just big office buildings with secure entry so
you can't even go inside without an invitation.
The Apple campus is similar although there is the Apple Company
Store, where you can buy clothing and other Apple signature branded
stuff (as well as software, hardware, iPods and accessories). There
are two Apple Retail Stores in SCV (in San Jose and Palo Alto) which
are almost as interesting. ;-)
Another possible is the museum at Intel headquarters. Have to check
when it is open to the public.
The San Jose Tech Museum is another worthwhile stop on the Geeky
Computer Tour too. And maybe Fry's Electronics or Weird Stuff.
I live in Sunnyvale and might be available for tour guide duty. You
*will* need a car and some planning because these stops are not
necessarily all near to each other, although they're not too far
apart. It's about an 45minutes from SF to the Apple Campus in
Cupertino, 20 minutes to there to PARC, another 20 minutes from there
to the Tech Museum, etc.
Godfrey
