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Description:
Enjoy a visit on Culture Night to one of Ireland’s most fascinating museums.
The Computer and Communications Museum of Ireland is a unique technology heritage facility where an hands-on approach to many of the artifacts are encouraged.
Its popular selection of 1980s Commodore, BBC, Macintosh, Sega, Nintendo and Sinclair consoles/computers with classic Pacman, Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario games as well as Star Trek and telephony displays are now augmented by an exciting range of new additions such as Flight Simulator, early FIFA, a 1980 computer chess set with 7 levels of difficulty, the immersive 1989 Power Glove from Nintendo and an interactive stand with a suite of original Microsoft Xbox consoles allowing users to relive a teenager home party of 2001 with one of the first consoles to allow multiple users to play games online without a broadband connection by way of a LAN (local area network) system.
There is also a wonderful operational Morse Code-based spark wireless telegraphy transmitter exhibit put together by museum board member Frank McCurry that recreates a Marconi radio system from the 1890s.
The Apple exhibit includes a Newton MessagePad from 1993, the first device to feature handwriting recognition software; the iBook laptop that in 2001 introduced free easy to follow video editing to Irish schools: and 1980s Apple promotional memorabilia.
The role of Galway in the history of computing and communications is not forgotten. For from it. There is a display that tells the story of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), the second largest computer company in the world when it came to Galway in 1971, a move that helped transform the economic direction of the country. A further exhibit is dedicated to another influential multinational from the 1970s, namely Northern (Electric)Telecom a major Canadian telecommunications corporation which opened a large manufacturing operation in Galway during 1973 exporting primarily to European markets and the first company in the world to deliver digital telecommunications products.
