User:Michael Burch

Hello, I'm Mike Burch, a Software Developer living in Highland Maryland, USA. Along with my nephew, Martin Burch, I am one of the founding curators of the Highland Historic Computer Museum.

No, I'm not really such a Sourpuss as some may people think ;)

Background
I grew up in the era of Mainframes, punch cards and 40MB hard drives the size of a washing machine. While in college I was one of the lucky few to work in the Computer Graphics lab where we used a Minicomputer (PDP11) to draw on a vector display. Microcomputers were still years away.

Of course it was the dream of every geek to one day own an actual 'Personal Computer'! Finally with the arrival of microprocessors in the late 70s this dream came true. My first computer was the fantastic Commodore 64. It had it all: color graphics, sprites, multi-channel sound with a real music synthesizer - a real multimedia extravaganza. And there was fabulous software too. Productivity applications, Great games. And with a modem you could go online to Compuserver, Bulletin Boards, and the Unbelievable Quantum Link!

I guess for me, the museum is a way to preserve some of the magic of that era.