Personal Computer Museum, Computer museum in Brantford, Canada
The Personal Computer Museum was a computer museum in Brantford, Ontario, that displayed around 50 working machines from brands such as Apple, Atari, Commodore, and IBM. It was housed in a former municipal building made of bricks that originally came from the Brantford Opera House.
The museum was founded in 2005 by Syd Bolton, who gathered personal computers from the 1970s through the 1990s. In 2018, the entire collection was transferred to the University of Toronto Mississauga, where it is now kept in the library.
The museum invited visitors to actually use the computers on display rather than simply look at them behind glass. Anyone could start a game, load a program, or type on a keyboard from decades past, which made the experience feel hands-on and personal.
Admission was free, and the museum opened only during certain months, so checking ahead before visiting was a good idea. Visiting during one of the gaming nights or technology discussion events offered more than a standard tour of the displays.
The museum owned a rare Extra Terrestrials Atari cartridge, one of the few copies that collectors consider especially hard to find. Upstairs, a large library held thousands of computer magazines covering several decades of the industry.
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