Located in Roswell, a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, the Computer Museum of America (CMoA) is home to more than 250,000 technology artifacts, making it one of the largest computer collections in the world.
Opened in July 2019, the 44,000 square-foot facility represents the culmination of 40 years of collecting by Atlanta real-estate developer and museum founder, Lonnie Mimms. The museum’s mission is to “preserve examples of the computing artifacts that have contributed to the digital revolution, to catalog these historically important artifacts, and record their surrounding history.”
The collection represents four primary types of artifact: Hardware (vintage supercomputers, personal computers, and peripherals), Software (operating systems, application programs, and games), Documents (drawings, memos, books, and manuals), and Commerce & Culture (materials from marketing campaigns, product launches, and sales promotions).
CMoA currently offers four permanent exhibits. A Tribute to Apollo 11 provides insight into the “race to space.” Supercomputing features over 70 supercomputers, including the iconic Cray1A. The Timeline of Computing History is a decade-by-decade review of the digital age. Finally, the Byte Wall Magazine Collection offers a complete collection of magazine covers from 1975 to 1998.
Mimms’ evolving plans for the CMoA include the addition of co-working spaces, educational programming, and a space for makers.
More information
