IBM Hursley Museum
--- Click here to take the Virtual Tour of the museum! ---
The museum at IBM Hursley Park exists to help preserve IBM's historical heritage. It contains artefacts developed at the Hursley Park location as well as hardware from the company's beginnings through to the PC and PS/2 eras and beyond. Staff on-site can visit the museum at any time. Customer groups are often shown around the Museum during visits to the Executive Briefing Centre but due to its location in the IBM development laboratory the Museum is not open to the general public.
Hursley's Museum is located in several rooms on the lower ground floor of Hursley House.
The Origins of IBM displays are spread over two rooms, one covering Punch Card technology - the T in CTR (Computing Tabulating & Recording Company), the original name of IBM, and the other time clocks, recorders and pre-IBM computing - the C & R. The Hursley room is dedicated to products developed by the Laboratory and displays the limited number of artefacts that still survive. It includes a System/370 console, reflecting Hursley's participation in the development of that series, and other artefacts like the 4691 'Moonshine' Leisure Terminal. The PC room was rearranged a while ago, as was the room once containing ThinkPads and Office Products. Some larger items of Unit Record equipment fill the gaps.
Recent News
It is with the greatest sadness that we have to announce the passing of one of our longest serving curators, Peter Short.
Peter first volunteered as a museum curator in 2011 and quickly realised that the museum needed some external visibility, and so started work on the museum's website.
Over the years the website has continued to evolve into a comprehensive exhibit catalogue and the far more extensive portal that you see today, all of which was designed, built and managed by Peter.
Peter was passionate about preserving IBM's historical legacy and was heavily involved with the IBM Corporate Archive, other IBM museums in Europe and further afield; computer preservation and conservation societies and individuals, including the British Computer Society, Computer Conservation Society, Bletchley Park and many more. Peter was a beacon of diligence, tirelessly working to document, protect, and share the stories of IBM's computing history. Along with his colleagues, Peter created exhibits that brought the evolution of technology to life, inspiring countless visitors to marvel at the pace and complexity of innovation or to relive their own experiences in the fledgling early days of computing. Peter's passing leaves the IBM Hursley Museum with a yawning gap in expertise and ingenuity which will be hard to fill. He will be sorely missed by his fellow curators, but his legacy lives on in every nook and cranny of the museum.