At the 1990 TeX Users Group meeting at Texas A&M University, one of the events was a tour of the computer center where we got to be in the room with their Cray. I think I sat on the bench.

You’ve just given me my weekend plans, thank you very much! They have a working IBM 1401 that you can see in action too!

Also a truly astonishingly beautiful babbage engine. I came from the UK to CA to see it.

You do know that there's one in London at the Science Museum (the one that was¹ in California was built at the same time for Nathan Myhrvold).

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1. It was on loan to the Computer History Museum from Myhrvold and returned to him in 2016. It's unclear whether he did re-loan it or if he's busily calculating the values of polynomials with it.² The Computer History Museum website makes it sound like it's currently on display but I can find no news stories about it going back to the museum.

2. Just kidding about him calculating polynomials—it's (I think) on display in the lobby of Intellectual Ventures.

I was curious enough to actually contact IV and confirm that the other Difference Engine No 2 is, in fact, in their lobby.

CHM homepage says it’s closed to the public ‘until later this year’.

Damn it