Once a year the computer industry comes together to celebrate these amazing machines!
A Worldwide Celebration of Computing with YOU at the center!
About World Computer Day
Share the Passion for Computing
About World Computer Day
Celebrating computers and the people who make IT happen.
Once a year, the computer industry will come together across the world to celebrate these amazing machines. With open houses, meetings, show-and-tell, and networking events, World Computer Day is a global celebration of one of the world’s greatest engineering inventions.
World Compute
Celebrating computers and the people who make IT happen.
Once a year, the computer industry will come together across the world to celebrate these amazing machines. With open houses, meetings, show-and-tell, and networking events, World Computer Day is a global celebration of one of the world’s greatest engineering inventions.
World Computer Day aims to raise awareness of the contributions that computing machines make to our society and to celebrate the diverse range of people that design, build, install, operate and support them ranging from large systems down to tiny micro. The day is held on the 15th of February each year, in recognition of the anniversary of the launch of ENIAC in 1946.
This event has been established by the Compuseum (see web site Compuseum) near the site of the world's first all-electronic, programmable computer, the ENIAC and who sponsors the organizing web site World Computer Day.
February 15th, 2022
Share the Passion for Computing
About World Computer Day
February 15th, 2020 was the day of the inaugural announcement of World Computer Day. And February 15th, 2021 was the first global celebration which coincided with the 75th Anniversary of the launch of ENIAC.
This year, we highlight the 6502 microprocessor; the chip that changed the world which was first released from Valley Forge, Pennsylv
February 15th, 2020 was the day of the inaugural announcement of World Computer Day. And February 15th, 2021 was the first global celebration which coincided with the 75th Anniversary of the launch of ENIAC.
This year, we highlight the 6502 microprocessor; the chip that changed the world which was first released from Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
Computer organizations and companies can support this international day by hosting their own "open days". This is a chance for members of the public to get up close and look over the computing centers, design shops, manufacturing sites, museums and fabrication installations while meeting the people that operate them.
Throughout the world people rely everyday on electronic computers for business, manufacturing, tourism, aviation, science, engineering, life care, education, media, communication and in many more roles.
World Computer Day aims to create awareness and drive digital literacy while also improving the teaching of Information Technology and more generally, the "celebration of computing and the people who make IT happen".
Share the Passion for Computing
Share the Passion for Computing
Share the Passion for Computing
For electronic computing geeks and leaders, World Computer Day is an opportunity for the technical computer community to share in their mutual passion while preserving and promoting relationships, traditions and shared memories. Swing open the doors and have some fun while also educating those who attend.
The website, www.WorldComputerDay.
For electronic computing geeks and leaders, World Computer Day is an opportunity for the technical computer community to share in their mutual passion while preserving and promoting relationships, traditions and shared memories. Swing open the doors and have some fun while also educating those who attend.
The website, www.WorldComputerDay.org will maintain information about this global project and tip off those wishing to organize events. Individual open day organizers are encouraged to check back for event details. Open day organizers can download a range of promotional collateral from the website including press releases for local media, tweetables, flyers and online banners. Event and brand logos will be made available via the main website http://worldcomputerday.org
The hashtags #worldcomputerday AND #6502Chip will be used to tie in activity across different social media platforms.
RESOURCES FOR WORLD COMPUTER DAY EVENT CELEBRATING THE 6502
The 6502 Chip being Celebrated on World Computer Day, February 15, 2022
Good Resources for 6502 Chip Background
https://www.cpushack.com/CPU/cpu1.html
https://www.apple1registry.com/en/27.html
https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/intel-marks-50th-anniversary-of-the-intel-4004/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnzuMJLZRdU
COMMODORE SEMICONDUCTOR GROUP
LOWER PROVIDENCE TOWNSHIP, PA
Cleanup Activities
JACK TRAMIEL HISTORY
Commodore and Atari
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Tramiel
MOS TECHNOLOGIES HISTORY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology
PEOPLE
Will Mathis
https://research.swtch.com/6502
Chuck Peddle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Peddle
Bill Mensch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Mensch
Learn More
Information at your Fingertips
Our going-forward planning includes providing educators with a wide range of materials and resources with the intent to give students, teachers and other professionals a comprehensive and broad range of resources on the topics being discussed. Multiple reliable web resources provide teachers with a wide range of resource materials on the the breadth of computers, micro-processors and information technology tools.
Photo Gallery of Events on World Computer Day celebrating the 6502 Chip; the chip that changed the world!
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Video Series about the 6502
How the MOS 6502 Sparked a Computing Revolution
In this video we discuss a microprocessor that helped revive home video game consoles, sparked Steve Job’s personal computer revolution, and made home computers widely available to the public: The MOS 6502. There's much to see here. So, take your time, look around, and learn all there is to know about the 6502.
Team 6502: The Story of the Team Behind the Chip That Launched the Personal Computing Revolution
Jennifer Winograd (daughter of Terry Holdt, part of the 6502 team) tells us about one of the most influential microprocessors ever designed, the MOS 6502 is credited with ushering in the most rapid democratization of technology in human history: the personal computing revolution.
65C02 Tear Down; a look at the CMOS version of the 6502 CPU
Launching a revolution from the 6502; the "CMOS version" of the 65C02. Used on long selling 3rd version Apple //e, Apple //c and lots of single-board industrial control computers. One of the most commercially important CPU architectures in the development of the personal computer.
Reverse Engineering the MOS 6502 CPU
Michael Steil subjects the 6502 to intense reverse engineering. The MOS 6502 CPU, which was designed in 1975 and powered systems like the Apple II, the Atari 2600, the Nintendo NES and the Commodore 64 for two decades. Only recently, the Visual6502.org project has converted a hi-res die-shot of the 6502 into a polygon model suitable for visually simulating the original mask at the transistor level. This talk will present the way from a chip package to a digital representation, how to simulate transistors in software, and new insights gained form this research about 6502 internals.
The Genesis of the 6502 Microprocessor
Vintage Computer Federation (VCF) hosts this fabulous video done by Stephen Edwards with Bill Mensch - The title of this is "The Genesis of the 6502 Microprocessor" - a retrospective created in August, 2020.
Suggested Reading
Back into the Storm: A Design Engineer's Story of Commodore Computers in the 1980s Paperback – July 28, 2021 by Bil Herd (Author), Margaret Gorts Morabito (Author)
Back into the Storm: A Design Engineer’s Story of Commodore Computers in the 1980s brings you on a journey recounting the experiences of working at Commodore Business Machines from 1983 to 1986, as seen through the eyes of a young hardware engineer, Bil Herd. Herd was the lead design engineer for the TED series of home computers which included the Plus/4 and C16. He was also the lead designer for the versatile C128 that sold in the millions and was known fondly as the last of the 8-bit computers. In this book, Bil tells the inside stories that he and his extraordinary team, called “the Animals,” lived through at Commodore.
These were years when the home computer wars were at their height, technology moved ahead at a fast pace, and Commodore was at its pinnacle. The best-selling computer of all time, the Commodore C64, was in full swing and had blown past the sales numbers of its competitors, such as Apple, Tandy, Atari, and Sinclair, to name a few, in the home computer market. Commodore’s founder, Jack Tramiel, was the head of the company when Bil began working there.
Home Computers: 100 Icons that Defined a Digital Generation (The MIT Press) Hardcover – Illustrated, May 19, 2020 by Alex Wiltshire (Author), John Short (Photographer)
A celebration of the early years of the digital revolution, when computing power was deployed in a beige box on your desk.
Today, people carry powerful computers in our pockets and call them “phones.” A generation ago, people were amazed that the processing power of a mainframe computer could be contained in a beige box on a desk. This book is a celebration of those early home computers, with specially commissioned new photographs of 100 vintage computers and a generous selection of print advertising, product packaging, and instruction manuals. Readers can recapture the glory days of fondly remembered (or happily forgotten) machines including the Commodore 64, TRS-80, Apple Lisa, and Mattel Aquarius—traces of the techno-utopianism of the not-so-distant past.
Home Computers showcases mass-market success stories, rarities, prototypes, one-offs, and never-before-seen specimens. The heart of the book is a series of artful photographs that capture idiosyncratic details of switches and plugs, early user-interface designs, logos, and labels. After a general scene-setting retrospective, the book proceeds computer by computer, with images of each device accompanied by a short history of the machine, its inventors, its innovations, and its influence. Readers who inhabit today's always-on, networked, inescapably connected world will be charmed by this visit to an era when the digital revolution could be powered down every evening.
The Nostalgia Nerd's Retro Tech: Computer, Consoles and Games Hardcover – November 6, 2018 by Peter Leigh (Author)
YouTube's most successful purveyor of computer nostalgia brings those stories to print.
This book celebrates the most exciting period in the history of technology - the arrival of the home computer and home gaming console. For a time, an exciting and ever-changing array of different companies fought for supremacy, leaving a lasting legacy of great gameplay and surreal design we'll never experience again.
Features screenshots of nostalgic games that will bring joy to the heart of anyone who grew up in the 80s or early 90s, alongside stunning studio photography of the computers that imprinted themselves on a generation's minds.
A deep dive into hardware and the dawn of the 6502 chip makes this a great book for World Computer Day fans.
Art of Atari Hardcover – Illustrated, October 25, 2016 by Tim Lapetino (Author)
ATARI is one of the most recognized names in the world.
Since its formation in 1972, the company pioneered hundreds of iconic titles including Asteroids, Centipede and Missile Command. In addition to hundreds of games created for arcades, home video systems, and computers, original artwork was specially commissioned to enhance the Atari experience, further enticing children and adults to embrace and enjoy the new era of electronic entertainment. ART OF ATARI is the first official collection of such artwork. Sourced from museums and private collections worldwide, this book spans over 40 years of the company's unique illustrations used in packaging, advertisements, catalogs, and more!
ART OF ATARI includes behind-the-scenes details on how dozens of games featured within were conceived of, illustrated, approved (or rejected), and brought to life. Whether you're a fan, collector, enthusiast, or new to the world of video games, this book offers the most complete collection of ATARI artwork ever produced!
Includes a special Foreword by New York Times bestseller Ernest Cline, author of Armada and Ready Player One, soon to be a motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg: "For me, revisiting the beautiful artwork presented in this book is almost as good as taking a trip in Doc Brown's time machine back to that halcyon era at the dawn of the digital age. But be warned, viewing these images may leave you with an overwhelming desire to revisit the ancient pixelated battlefields they each depict as well."
A New History of Modern Computing (History of Computing) by Thomas Haigh (Author), Paul E. Ceruzzi (Author)
How the computer became universal.
Over the past fifty years, the computer has been transformed from a hulking scientific supertool and data processing workhorse, remote from the experiences of ordinary people, to a diverse family of devices that billions rely on to play games, shop, stream music and movies, communicate, and count their steps. In A New History of Modern Computing, Thomas Haigh and Paul Ceruzzi trace these changes. A comprehensive reimagining of Ceruzzi's A History of Modern Computing, this new volume uses each chapter to recount one such transformation, describing how a particular community of users and producers remade the computer into something new.
Haigh and Ceruzzi ground their accounts of these computing revolutions in the longer and deeper history of computing technology. They begin with the story of the 1945 ENIAC computer, which introduced the vocabulary of "programs" and "programming," and proceed through email, pocket calculators, personal computers, the World Wide Web, videogames, smart phones, and our current world of computers everywhere--in phones, cars, appliances, watches, and more. Finally, they consider the Tesla Model S as an object that simultaneously embodies many strands of computing.
Milestones in Analog and Digital Computing by Herbert Bruderer
Milestones in Analog and Digital Computing by Herbert Bruderer, 2020 Edition
This Third Edition is the first English-language edition of the award-winning Meilensteine der Rechentechnik; illustrated in full color throughout in two volumes. The Third Edition is devoted to both analog and digital computing devices, as well as the world's most magnificient historical automatons and select scientific instruments (employed in astronomy, surveying, time measurement, etc.). It also features detailed instructions for analog and digital mechanical calculating machines and instruments, and is the only such historical book with comprehensive technical glossaries of terms not found in print or in online dictionaries. The book also includes a very extensive bibliography based on the literature of numerous countries around the world.
Meticulously researched, the author conducted a worldwide survey of science, technology and art museums with their main holdings of analog and digital calculating and computing machines and devices, historical automatons and selected scientific instruments in order to describe a broad range of masterful technical achievements. Also covering the history of mathematics and computer science, this work documents the cultural heritage of technology as well.
Review
“This voluminous work presents the fruits of extensive archival and historical research. … the book discusses many groundbreaking analog devices … . The reader finds a very expansive list of achievements here … . A main strength of Bruderer’s work are archival Insights … . The book is itself a milestone in computer history, and a much needed corrective to the tendency, both in industry and in academia, to see computing almost exclusively in terms of the near future.” (IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 5, April-June, 2022)
PEOPLE OF PHILLY CREATING THE COMPUTER AGE Kathy Kleiman Writes about Women of ENIAC
Women of ENIAC by Kathy Kleiman
Fans of Dava Sobel’s The Glass Universe and Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures are in for a treat” (Publishers Weeky) with this untold, World War II-era story of the six American women who programmed the world's first modern computer.
After the end of World War II, the race for technological supremacy sped on. Top-secret research into ballistics and computing, begun during the war to aid those on the front lines, continued across the United States as engineers and programmers rushed to complete their confidential assignments. Among them were six pioneering women, tasked with figuring out how to program the world's first general-purpose, programmable, all-electronic computer--better known as the ENIAC— even though there were no instruction codes or programming languages in existence. While most students of computer history are aware of this innovative machine, the great contributions of the women who programmed it were never told -- until now.
Over the course of a decade, Kathy Kleiman met with four of the original six ENIAC Programmers and recorded extensive interviews with the women about their work. PROVING GROUND restores these women to their rightful place as technological revolutionaries. As the tech world continues to struggle with gender imbalance and its far-reaching consequences, the story of the ENIAC Programmers' groundbreaking work is more urgently necessary than ever before, and PROVING GROUND is the celebration they deserve.