Information technology museum boots up in Arlington

Ever wondered what a Commodore or Apple Lisa computer looked like or what a Comptometer or slide rule were all about?

The Arlington Museum of Information Technology — a nonprofit scientific and educational organization — has formed to help show and tell their stories as well as those of hundreds of other information processing technology relics saved from the landfill or recycling heaps.

A product of the College of Engineering’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington, the new museum is comprised of more than 1,000 items acquired over the past few years. The College of Engineering ran out of space to house the burgeoning collection so it was donated to help kick start the museum.

“We’re pack rats,” admitted Gil Carrick, former curator of the collection for the engineering department.

Carrick retired last year after six years to become the museum’s director. He is one of four on the museum’s board of directors, which includes Tom Rethard, a lecturer in the computer science department. Rethard was the original manager of computer systems at the Automation and Robotics Research Institute at UT-Arlington, where he implemented one of the first twisted-pair Ethernets in the state of Texas.

“That donation spurred us on and we’re really focused now to find a small space, say 1,000 to 1,500 square feet, where we can display more items from the collection,” Carrick said.

The collection — which includes circuit boards, punch cards dating back to World War II, minicomputers, early calculators and adding machines — runs the gamut from the mundane to the unique.

“We’re particularly proud of a Four Phase Systems IV/90 computer, which dates from the mid-1970s or early 1980s,” Carrick said. “There are maybe only five of these left in existence because most of them got melted down for the gold in them. We consider this a real prize.”

For now, parts of the collection continue to be displayed in the Nedderman Hall Engineering Building and around the UT-Arlington campus in eight vitrines that are on loan to the museum.

Carrick said a partnership has been struck with the Arlington Public Library. Within two to three weeks, he said, three vitrines filled with technology artifacts will be on display at the library’s downtown location.

Carrick said the museum’s board is talking with other city entities — including City Hall, the Visitors Center, the Convention Center, the Chamber of Commerce and some of the public schools — to arrange places for future displays.

“We’re starting from the bottom up,” said Carrick. “Ultimately, we’d like to have a permanent building, somewhere in downtown Arlington that’s close to the other museums, including the Fielder and Arlington Museum of Art. There’s a lot of technology history in North Texas and we’d like to have a large permanent building for everyone to see it.”

For information about the Arlington Museum of Information Technology, contact Carrick at 817-994-9213, e-mail amit@tx.rr.com or visit http://amit-tx.org./