The Computer and Communications Museum of Ireland, located at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics in the DERI Building of NUI Galway, has become an integral part of our community. Over the past month, Brendan and his team have hosted a Culture Night, a Retro Gaming session and a mobile robot!
Below are some snippets from the past month. You can visit the museum yourself as it is open to the public from 11am – 4pm, Monday to Friday, with group tours by appointment. You can follow the museum on Facebook, Twitter or visit their site for more information.
Special thanks to Brendan ‘Speedie’ Smith for the background and images below.
Culture Night
The museum received a visit from ‘Martin the Robot’ during Culture Night 2017. The mobile robot was a big hit with the children during Culture Night with lots of amusing interaction going on.
‘Martin’ is named after its controller, Martin Serrano, a renowned global expert on the Internet of Things who recently launched the ‘Internet of Robotics Things’ Lab at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics at NUI Galway
‘Martin’ will henceforth be a regular presence in the museum as the facility will be hosting a permanent exhibit entitled ‘Internet of Robotic Things.’
The Trailblazer that was Commodore
October saw the launch of the interactive Commodore and Amiga zone in the museum in association with Amiga Ireland. The event was filmed for the Commodore Story documentary due to be released in 2018.
The museum now has working Commodore 64’s and Amigas with a library of games from the 80’s. The next challenge is to get the Commodore VIC-20 and Pets operational with the support of the Amiga Ireland crew, Iarla O’Riada, Craig Harrison and Kenny Gaughan and the support of fellow enthusiasts Alanna Kelly and Diarmuid Keaney.
Retro Gaming
The recent Retro Games Night, held as part of national Heritage Week 2017 in conjunction with Galway Civic Trust, was fully booked out! This was the first big event at the museum that was held since the facility got a ‘makeover’ and the responses from the visitors were very positive.
One of the most interesting features from the Retro Games night was the high number of young girls and adult women that attended. This is important as it was the growing popularity of computer and video gaming amongst boys in the 1970s and 1980s that gave computing a predominately male image. This led to female alienation from an industry in which they were prominent in earlier decades.
