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Photo essay: The Kennett Classic Computer Museum
Jump Continued from Page 44The Kennett Classic Celebrating the milest
Text by Richard L. Gaw
To peruse the five-room contents of the Kennett Classic Computer Museum – a vintage computing gallery in Kennett Square filled with mostly donated items -- is to immerse one’s self in an incredible story that has impacted the lives of nearly every human being on Earth over the last 70 years.
Painstakingly categorized in chronological order, the Museum provides a broad sweep of the advent of the computer from its rudimentary beginnings in the 1940s to the mid-1990s.
From shelf to shelf and room to room, the Kennett Classic Computer Museum unfolds in such a way that illustrates the evolution of the computer, in much the same the way a gallery acknowledges the life’s work of one artist. Here though, it’s much more than a collection of 8-bit processors, controller chips, papertape readers and vintage Ataris, Commodores, Altairs and Apple Macintoshes. Complimented by a catalog of documentation, back-catalog computer publications, photographs and inperson and online tours, the Museum provides a firm imprint of how the Mid-Atlantic Region has played an instrumental role in transforming the size, look and purpose of computers over the past several decades.
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Photos by Jie Deng
Computer Museum: tones in people’s lives
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Continued from Page 46 “Many people have told me, ‘I never realized what a teletype sounded like,’ and ‘I have forgotten what a modem sounds like when it connects.’ What I am trying to do is educate people to understand that these computers aren’t just things you worked with, but that they were milestones in people’s lives.”
The Kennett Classic Computer Museum
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Founder Bill Degnan said that the Museum’s location fits nicely within the framework of a popular and walkable borough.
“I wanted this museum to be on Union Street in Kennett Square for a specific reason,” said Degnan, a web and e-commerce designer with his company Degnan Co Web Services, who began the museum in 2019. “There used to be an antiquarian bookstore next door, and there are art galleries just blocks away, and they’re in large part one of the reasons that Kennett Square draws so many people who love to follow their curiosity.
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The Kennett Classic Computer Museum
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“We continue to have people donate to and support this museum simply because it is not in a technology park.”
For visitors of all ages who come to the Kennett Classic Computer Museum, it’s not only a walk through the vast history of computer technology, it’s a treat for the senses and a walk through moments.
“Many people have told me, ‘I never realized what a teletype sounded like,’ and ‘I have forgotten when a modem sounds like when it connects,” Degnan said. “What I am trying to do is educate people to understand that these computers aren’t just things you worked with, but that they were milestones in people’s lives.”
The Kennett Classic Computer Museum is located at 126 South Union Street, Kennett Square, Pa. Tel.: 484-7327041. To learn more about the Kennett Classic Computer Museum, visit www.kennettclassic.com.
