Ideas you can
interact with.
Software changed the world.
Come explore how it changed us.
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Tools for thinking. Canvases for creating. Windows into other worlds.
Small programs.
Extraordinary possibilities.
Follow an idea from its first spark to your everyday life. Our opening selection begins with five ways software expanded what people could do.
No exhibits match that search. Try a name, year, or idea.
The magic was
in the doing.
A mouse. A blank canvas. The possibility of making something that didn’t exist a moment ago.
Try our one-bit drawing canvas: a small tribute to the joy of early painting software.
This is a new demonstration, not original MacPaint software.
A different kind of progress.
Not just faster machines.
New ways to be human.
First, an open tab.
Someday, an open door.
Meet the idea behind the museum ↗This online museum is our first room.
Our ambition is a physical Museum of Software: a place to sit down at the machines, explore the programs, and encounter the people and ideas behind them.
We’re starting here, with a small collection and a simple belief: software deserves to be experienced, not just remembered.
Preserve the experience.
Not just the machine.
We remember the computers. But it was software that made them a studio, a classroom, a playground, or a window to the world.
The Museum of Software is an independent project exploring that human story. This opening collection is a proof of concept for a larger museum, both online and in person.
About this first collection +
Exhibit histories link to sources from the Computer History Museum and CERN. All interface illustrations and hands-on activities on this site are new interpretations; they are not archival screenshots or emulations. This project is not affiliated with the organizations or software makers featured.
What comes next +
More exhibits, first-person stories, and opportunities to experience original software. The physical museum is a long-term ambition; no location or opening date has been announced.