[vcf-midatlantic] Should the new museum have a name?

[Dave McGuire]

On 03/03/2016 11:49 AM, Christian Liendo via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
> Or even
> 
> The Museum for Historical Computing at the InfoAge Science Center.
> 
> Kind of long, sounds serious.

  And it sounds CREDIBLE, which is the #1 most important factor here.
One need only look at established, respected museums to see that they
don't have childish or "fun" names.  We all love Star Trek, but that
needs to stay in our living rooms if any of this is to be taken seriously.

  Whenever I've told people about the MARCH museum, I've always referred
to it as "the computer museum at the InfoAge Science Center", to avoid
the inevitable expansion of MARCH to "Mid-Atlantic Retrocomputing
Hobbyists"...That conjures an image of thirty-somethings living in their
parents' basement playing old games, not a scholarly institution with a
lofty purpose.  People will travel for and respect the latter...not the
former.

  I agonized for years, literally years, over the name of the museum we
started out here.  I even "settled on" a couple of names that, after
sitting in my mind for a few months, I grew to dislike.  I eventually
decided on "Large Scale Systems Musuem" as it is refined, understated,
not childish, and respectable, while getting the point across as to what
the place actually IS.  The only failing of that name (in my opinion) is
that it doesn't convey the notion of machines being running and
demonstrable, as the Living Computer Museum's name very nicely does.

              -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA