Science Museum (for nerds only)

Since Sarah clearly isn't a nerd (and thus probably wouldn't want to come with me to the Science Museum) I took my chance while she was at work on Wednesday (and thus completed a hat-trick of museums).

On the whole, I was slightly underwhelmed by the museum (I think I'd been a little spoilt by the Natural History and British museums the preceeding days) in that there was little there that I hadn't seen at the Powerhouse in Sydney and it was very much aimed at kids. Having said that, two cool things which you wouldn't see anywhere else are the Apollo 10 capsule which orbited the moon, and a working copy of the Babbage difference engine that they have built from his design (he couldn't finish it in his lifetime)

The Apollo 10 lunar return capsule

The highlight was a temporary exhibit on the history of videogames, with everything from a PDP-1 (the first computer ever used for a computer game) to the Wii and X-Box 360. Most of the machines were working and playable, and I managed to play some of the 'defining moments in gaming'. I got to school a 10-year-old at Streetfighter II (kids these days don't even know about combo's to make Ryu go 'adulken'), and discover why nobody has ever played the original Streetfighter I (because it isn't very good). I also got to play Space Invaders on an original cabinet and the original Star Wars game from 1983, and to reminisce over some games I hadn't played in 10 years or more (Lemmings are so cute when you make them blow up!)

A PDP-1 (there was a playable version next to it...the Spacewars! game isn't very good by today's standards, but amazing given it is 40 years old or more)

Unfortunately the videogame exhibit ends in a couple of weeks, so I don't think I'll be able to get back for some multi-player action with anyone who can present more of a challenge than the schoolkids did :( Feel free to reminisce along with me in the comments...