It's hard to keep collections of large objects going. I have too many Teletype machines. An entire telephone museum was auctioned off lately. The Museum of Communications in Seattle is only open Sunday from 10 am to 3:00 pm. And just try to find a home for a Linotype.
There just isn't enough demand from the public to require monuments be built to house this stuff. Sad as that may seem I'm hoping virtual reality helps future generations appreciate the stuff of bygone eras.
It will be difficult to appreciate the full sensory range of stuff from bygone eras without touch/pressure and smell to accompany the VR reconstructions. I hope researchers and VR companies can perfect these as fast follow-on feature enhancements to VR environments.
In NH usa there is an Arcade called "fun spot" which got non-profit status to preserve arcade machines. Its not polished but it has games and all are playable. The non-profit status helps. It seems a bit of a struggle to keep some of these running parts being harder to find.
Enjoyed the post and nice to see the guys collection being preserved and honoured in that way.
Personally though, the best bit was the picture of the "No Man's Land" cabinet, which is a game I've been struggling to find since playing it on holiday back in the early eighties. Never saw it again and couldn't recall the name of it to look it up on MAME.
I agree. I sort of wished that the plaques had had a QR code or a link to the write-up too; it made me think that it would be cool to have a service for that kind of thing, where an object passed through several owners could be traced back to each (willing participant) owner, who would have a little write-up of their history and the object.
Very good point. I think my grandma did a good job of giving things away before she died. I showed interest in some music books I found on her shelves and she gave them to me right away (I wasn't asking for them). At least giving things away before you die you can see others use and enjoy them. Especially when you think you're not going to get the chance to use it again.
My friend had a really cool grandma, she used to slip him pocket money accompanied by sayings like "Shrouds have no pockets". That used to upset his parents, adding to the coolness.
But sometimes, that do not realize what your stuff is. When I pass, will someone recognize that my VU/Warhol Banana poster is actually autographed by Lou Reed? Will they identify the Scotty Moore and Johnny Ramone autographs? The uniqueness of some of my guitars and my vinyl collection?
Some things have value only to myself, others if they know what the item really is. The best is to simply value memories and not possessions. But at least those guitars get played and the vinyl is appreciated right now.
