I've mostly been a fly on the wall since I'm so far away
Always glad to hear from you, Mike.
At a glance, my only thought is with the Atari 8-bit together with the other 8-bit computers, the ST should go closer in line to the 68k systems like the Macs and Amiga.
The ST may not necessarily be on display anywhere. I was only thinking "other Atari computers" for that top shelf. If we want to include it but among similar systems, then perhaps it could rival the Sony SMC-70 for that slot above the Amiga. (Now that I think about it, the 1040 and the SMC-70 are both small-ish, so maybe we could fit both up there. And...... Google says the 1040ST is 18.x inches wide, SMC-70 is 14.x, so they'll both fit on the 36-inch shelf.)
Also, with layout, I would love to know what the presentation will be, the logical flow of the displays may be determined by that
Layout: www.vcfed.org/evan/9010layout.jpg -- only part now shown is our small classroom/workshop, which is left of the "Computer of the Month" display in the upper-left corner.
will be rough, but partly I see timeline, partly I see "generations", also manufacturers, and also key topics, such as local NJ, homebrew, or perhaps even rare/special historical.
As stated, the chart is chronological by system in the left column. Any other trends you see there are natural (generations) or coincidental.
Seems like things are coming together nicely
They are! I'm happy with how it is going. The lease is signed, we have four orders from three shelf companies en route, going to order the stools tonight, our double door is almost ready, we've got a layout, we cleared out two of four rooms from our old museum, we'll do more moving this weekend, we have a new office computer + printer + screen being donated (different person donating each part), and now we're almost done with deciding which microcomputers go where. What's left? The rest of the move (including the big stuff), deciding what to use for a front desk, making all new posters, building the furniture when it arrives, setting up all the computers (from the old museum and others from our warehouse), cabling everything, building the "modern history" exhibit, building the classroom/workshop, and getting it all done in time for VCF East. Whew! That's a lot of work, but I am having a blast doing it.
There are so many cool artifacts you guys have too like newsletters and documentation, wish more of that can be scanned or made available
So do we. :) Unfortunately there won't be space for a library, but we will try to think of a creative way to display/store certain things such as early issues of all the major computer magazines.
as resources allow
Those are the magic words.