Finding your dads work in a museum
It is an interesting experience to find the work your dad did being exhibited in a museum.
I was reading an article called Grid World. The author was visiting the Museum of Modern Art and
As I waited in line to enter the museum, I saw my dad’s name on a promotional poster for the same exhibit.
His dad had been one of the creators of the game Myst.
My dad was an electronics engineer and he worked on a wide variety of projects over the years. I have had similar experiences to the above mentioned author as some of my dads work was briefly exhibited at the Science Museum in London.
He designed one of the first handheld organisers, the Microwriter. As well as being exhibited it was also shown on TV programmes like Tomorrows World. It was further developed into a device called the AgendA which won a British Design award.
I visited the National Museum of Computing. As well as seeing a lot of the computers I grew up with in my childhood, they had a selection of the devices he designed on display. I had a similar reaction to the author
I wanted to tell the museum visitors next to me in line, “That’s my dad! He’s in the MoMA!” I kept my cool and pretended it was normal.
He worked on some of the signalling on the London Underground in the early part of his career. A TV programme about the underground had a section on one of the oldest signalling rooms which was about to be replaced. I found out that my dad designed some of the electronics for that.
Another example was visiting Epcot. I found out after our visit that he helped design the sound system that was used in it at the time.
I am fortunate to have worked on a lot of different projects in my career. My first job was on writing software for public libraries and I was able to see it in use in my local library for years after I left. They still use machines for checking in and returning books and I worked on the very first version of those in the world.
I did a lot of work on network equipment at one early point in my career. I can still see some of the kit that I worked on for sale, albeit on ebay. I am half tempted to buy one for posterity.
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