For the love of machines

People become attached to their old computers-some people more than others. Michael Williams is very attached to his. A long-time collector and one of the most prominent computer historians, he has just been recruited to turn a motley collection of obsolete machines-currently sitting in a warehouse at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley-into a world-class museum. With gems such as the 1965 Honeywell kitchen computer, which required a two-week course to learn how to use, and the Cray 2, which used artificial blood plasma as coolant, how could he fail? Catherine Zandonella meets him among his hulking mainframes…