I had no idea this closed and I've lived here for six years! I can't believe I didn't go visit.
Surely there is enough money in this city of Houston between airlines that operate here and the oil companies that they spend most of your ticket money on to keep this open?
It really was/is a gem of a museum, very fun to visit and quite approachable. We went a couple times, once when they had some fly-ins that made it extra special.
The rack in this image appears to house a Texas Instruments minicomputer of some model, not sure exactly which. 980 maybe? Might be fun to play with, but not for $20K.
The E and S rack was an 'image generator'. That one was called an SP1. I fondly remember the SP3T as being the pinnacle of that series; the T meant "texture processing".
image a computer display made up of 1000 line segments. that is what you would get. it was possible to buy these with an output that was not raster, rather it drew on the CRT with vector segments. incredible light points to simulate night landings.
At the minimum you’d need a telehandler or forklift capable of lifting 20,000 lbs (according to the listing) which is probably $1,500 for one day with delivery and pickup, a flatbed semi trailer to load it on, and labor to load it. If the equipment isn’t on skids you can lift with a forklift, then you need riggers and a crane truck. Either way sounds fairly expensive, and that’s without having a place to move it to.
To anyone for whom Houston is a bit too far of a drive (plus the fact that the museum now seems closed), but Cincinnati is not: Union Terminal is another beautiful example of art deco.
Fellow Union Terminal aficionado here. Also highly recommend to any art deco architecture lovers.
Even if you're not into art deco architecture it's worth a visit. The Omnimax theatre is worth the trip alone, but the museums are great too.
@macintux - It's hard to get on the tour because they sell out, and they don't allow photography, but the high steel tour, which includes walking up to the top of the inside of the half dome, is great. There's some duplication with the behind the scenes tour but it's still worth it. It's probably second to the (now discontinued for liability reasons) Cincinnati subway tour in terms of seeing cool hidden stuff in the Cincinnati area.
that's seriously not the issue. if you look at the those pictures of the 737 frame - this is very large system which hasn't operated for many years and is largely just a pile of components at this point. it would probably be easier to rebuild the control system from scratch than try to bring it back to life. this would probably take a team of pretty serious people many years to get functional.
what you have there is a coding sheet for a GP4. a stored program computer, with drum memory.
eventually, the company would call that a 'system design and mechanization report', which would document the math and equations needed to correctly simulate a small part of an aircraft.
note the marking "link division of general precision". the computer was made by General Precision, of which the Link aviation company was the biggest customer. i had always been told that Link purchased General Precision, but perhaps it was the other way around.
i worked in this industry for about 35 years. this stuff was ancient and forgotten about when I started.
This is really sad. I was hopeful the Lone Star Flight Museum would take it over. I spent a few afternoons there with my then much smaller kids. It was a not overdone museum where you could explore around inside the vehicles like a Sikorsky S-34 and the not-working simulators.
I would love to see someone on CuriousMarc's, TubeTime's or Usagi's level of dedication get all that and rebuild/reconstruct it. Maybe if all the technology geeks of YouTube got together they could reconstruct one of those to a working level. The 737 one looks like it still has most of the components....
dtagames | a day ago
Surely there is enough money in this city of Houston between airlines that operate here and the oil companies that they spend most of your ticket money on to keep this open?
ljoshua | a day ago
Hopefully it can be preserved and continue it's life! There is hope: https://www.1940airterminal.org/news/texas-historical-commis...
MichaelZuo | a day ago
There shouldn’t be any huge expenses, unless they were leasing the premises at market rate.
underlipton | 20 hours ago
SoftTalker | a day ago
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e52f79c0260e6...
Note the 8" floppy disk drives also.
badc0ffee | a day ago
theodric | 20 hours ago
bilegeek | 21 hours ago
https://i.imgur.com/b3py96N.jpeg
https://imgur.com/gallery/dc-8-simulator-xY7eS
arjie | 21 hours ago
nsxwolf | 20 hours ago
budman1 | 19 hours ago
image a computer display made up of 1000 line segments. that is what you would get. it was possible to buy these with an output that was not raster, rather it drew on the CRT with vector segments. incredible light points to simulate night landings.
yaur | 16 hours ago
quickthrowman | 8 hours ago
system2 | a day ago
ChoGGi | 19 hours ago
Me too :(
stdbrouw | a day ago
macintux | 23 hours ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_Union_Terminal
I spent hours photographing in there last summer. Free tours available which will take you into some of the back offices with more art deco goodness.
EvanAnderson | 21 hours ago
Even if you're not into art deco architecture it's worth a visit. The Omnimax theatre is worth the trip alone, but the museums are great too.
@macintux - It's hard to get on the tour because they sell out, and they don't allow photography, but the high steel tour, which includes walking up to the top of the inside of the half dome, is great. There's some duplication with the behind the scenes tour but it's still worth it. It's probably second to the (now discontinued for liability reasons) Cincinnati subway tour in terms of seeing cool hidden stuff in the Cincinnati area.
jrumbut | 19 hours ago
Lammy | 18 hours ago
- vertical lines == Deco
- horizontal lines == Streamline (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streamline_Moderne)
skyblock500 | a day ago
It is unfortunate to see any museum close. I hope their assessment from the Texas Historical Commission succeeds!
convolvatron | 21 hours ago
rationalist | a day ago
sublinear | 23 hours ago
captainregex | 21 hours ago
hex4def6 | 20 hours ago
I don't think I've ever seen a manual that expected me to use DeMorgan's Theorem as part of a test procedure... :)
budman1 | 19 hours ago
eventually, the company would call that a 'system design and mechanization report', which would document the math and equations needed to correctly simulate a small part of an aircraft.
note the marking "link division of general precision". the computer was made by General Precision, of which the Link aviation company was the biggest customer. i had always been told that Link purchased General Precision, but perhaps it was the other way around.
i worked in this industry for about 35 years. this stuff was ancient and forgotten about when I started.
adolph | 20 hours ago
Lammy | 18 hours ago
> At this moment, HAHS is in default of the lease, and must vacate both the terminal building and the 1928 hangar by the end of June.
Sad :(
dark-star | 11 hours ago