Computer heaven. Who knew?

The American Computer and Robotics

Museum is something of a surprise.

It also resides in the clever town of Bozeman. I'm really loving this place. Not that the museum is easy to find, funnily enough. We have to Google around a bit before clever Bruce deciphers its low key presence in among a complex of professional buildings.

It is free.

This nice quality reflects much of the spirit of the old days of computer development and especially the Internet when it was believed that this wonderful technology should be devoted to to free sharing of all human knowledge.

Thanks to certain devoted Internet identities such as Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, this has become very much so. Thanks also Larry Page and Sergei Brin, founders of Google. How wonderful it is for us to be able to settle most any dispute at the click of a mouse.

And here are we navigating this immense country with nothing

more than a telephone in the hand. Finding our way, then having restaurants recommended…

And here, in Bozeman, Montana, is the official museum of it all.

It is surprisingly large.

The museum supervisor, a well-versed Polish woman, gives us a rapid-fire rundown of the purpose and special features of the museum and then leaves us to make our way as we wish. Bruce thought he had been so close to this world that it would

be a bit ho hum for him - but he is loving it as much as I am.

It starts with a model of the earliest known computer, Babylonian clay tablets, the Antikythera mechanism circa 150 BC - and goes on through a series of rooms.

There is the most wonderful memo from Bill Gates giving his phone number with the suggestion that anyone ring him if they find a problem with his program.

“Long shot,” laughs Bruce.

There are details on Steve Wozniak, the invention of the

WWW, and email.

Oh we remember those early days all too well.

This is a history of monumental change within our lifetimes. We have been a part of it, Bruce especially.

There are lots of things Bruce helped in the programming one way or another through his long career, the Viking mission to Mars among them.

I gaze hypnotically at the rhythmic machinations of the Bombe. There is a whole room devoted to cracking the code of the German Enigma machine during World War II.

Oh, and look at those old cellphones. I used to lug around one of those originals when I was writing the Back Chat column back in the 1980s. Telstra gave it to me to test and promote. We used all to gather in the bar of the Union Hotel and ring the international time number and marvel at the wonders of technology.

"I lived this world and I know it really well, but I am still surprised at just how much they have collected in here," sings Bruce as we leave. High praise, I say.

Whizzing into Bozeman proper for lunch

we encounter another miracle of cultural progress. Atheist buskers singing about how they "don’r believe in God because he gave us Donald Trump!" Most of Montana is a bit of the God and Guns inclination. These lads from Portland surely could only get away with such daring in a clever town like Bozeman. I give them money with alacrity.

The main street is bedecked with hanging pots of vivid petunias. It is charming. There’s a dear old theatre with stars in the pavement outside it.

. Gary Cooper! Who knew he grew up in Bozeman!