North West Computer Museum - Soft Opening

[z0m8ied0g]

Hi,

I'm involved with a new museum in the North West which is now ready to open.

We are having a soft opening day (the full opening will be next month) where we will be testing out and debugging our facilities and hopefully taking onboard any advice or suggestions people can give.
We will hopefully be able to provide an entertaining and interesting visit where you can play on 50+ machines, play in our mini arcade or relax with a coffee in our Cafe.

If you are interested in attending then its on Saturday 28th January - 10am - 4pm
Leigh Spinners Mill,
Floor 4,
Park Lane,
Leigh,
WN7 2LB

There are limited tickets available at the rate of £7 each available from...
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/north-west ... 5226936637

Cheers

Stephen

[roland]

Would this location be suitable for an ABUG meeting? It’s not that far from the Manchester Airport.

[paulb]

Would this location be suitable for an ABUG meeting? It’s not that far from the Manchester Airport.

Not sure that this is a selling point, exactly, given recent experiences of travelling via Manchester Airport!

[roland]

Well for me the air plane is still the most convenient way to visit an ABUG meeting. My previous experiences at Manchester Airport were quite well. But the last time was in 2018 or so...

[paulb]

Well for me the air plane is still the most convenient way to visit an ABUG meeting. My previous experiences at Manchester Airport were quite well. But the last time was in 2018 or so...

Well, I'm not sure how to say this... Having to use MAN, in airport speak, occasionally, I can only hope it gets a lot better and fairly soon because its operators seem to be able to find new and interesting ways to disappoint, even if that already seemed like quite a challenge. But I feel it is a bit unfair to go on about this topic, so let us hope for the best and for smooth transit to and from ABUG meetings in future!

[jgharston]

Well for me the air plane is still the most convenient way to visit an ABUG meeting. My previous experiences at Manchester Airport were quite well. But the last time was in 2018 or so...

My last time was 2018. I arrived from Japan at about 00:30, in plenty of time for the first train at 07:30

[z0m8ied0g]

Would this location be suitable for an ABUG meeting? It’s not that far from the Manchester Airport.

That is the plan at some point in the future if things work out.

[BeebMaster]

Sounds promising, and nearly on my doorstep, I hope it works out.

And yes, last time I returned from overseas to Ringway Airport (in 2019) I didn't think they were going to let me back in. Certainly it seemed easier to enter the UK as a foreign passport holder than as a British subject. I think it's got worse since.

[dominicbeesley]

Hi Stephen,

We talked about this the other week at ABUG and then I managed to miss this announcement otherwise I'd have come along. How did it go? Did you get any pictures? What's the plan for official opening or other test days?

D

[picosonic]

For those in the UK this new museum featured on BBC Breakfast this morning.

It's at 53mins and 2hr 55mins into the program (which is available until 09:13am tomorrow - 31st Jan)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m ... t-30012023

North West Computer Museum

[z0m8ied0g]

There should be something on the local evening slot as well. And the radio next week possibly.

[z0m8ied0g]

Hi Stephen,

We talked about this the other week at ABUG and then I managed to miss this announcement otherwise I'd have come along. How did it go? Did you get any pictures? What's the plan for official opening or other test days?

D

The museum is now open to visit, not all of the exhibits etc are currently running but a lot are.
We are open Wednesday - Sunday 10am - 4pm.

https://nwcomputermuseum.org.uk

The official opening will hopefully be sometime in February, I'll post something when I know more.

I'll sort out a few pics an post.

[BeebMaster]

It was also on the BBC News website a couple of days ago:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-m ... r-64413424

[z0m8ied0g]

A few pics I took of the classroom and main 70s / 80s section.

[chrisn]

Congrats on opening!

https://nwcomputermuseum.org.uk

The website is brilliant

[scruss]

I get a very slow text header, then nothing ... that's all she wrote

https://nwcomputermuseum.org.uk/ website

[BigEd]

Probably javascript or browser trouble - the page is drawn slowly. Final result looks like this
https://archive.ph/LUbxR

[z0m8ied0g]

I get a very slow text header, then nothing ... that's all she wrote
nwcomputermuseum.jpg

Which browser are you using, I'll get our team to look at it.

[z0m8ied0g]

Copy of the interview peices on the BBC...

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAue ... ebWhLw04hr

[BeebMaster]

I get a very slow text header, then nothing ... that's all she wrote
nwcomputermuseum.jpg

That's what happened to me. I was trying to find out where the nearest train station is, but it's 3 miles away. I closed the tab, and then opened a new one with the same link a few minutes later, and it drew the whole thing.

[paulb]

I get a very slow text header, then nothing ... that's all she wrote
nwcomputermuseum.jpg

That's what happened to me. I was trying to find out where the nearest train station is, but it's 3 miles away. I closed the tab, and then opened a new one with the same link a few minutes later, and it drew the whole thing.

It did what scruss described when I first looked at the site. When I looked yesterday, it loaded the whole thing as far as I could tell. Maybe there is some check for a cookie that fails first time round. (I also looked at the linked Spinners Mill site which has a cookie warning that fails to link to the privacy policy page, so you have to accept the policy to remove the annoying banner.)

[scruss]

I get a very slow text header, then nothing ... that's all she wrote
nwcomputermuseum.jpg

Which browser are you using, I'll get our team to look at it.

It didn't render in Firefox 109.0 on Linux and Mac, but does render in 109.0.1 (released in the last couple of days)

[bracky]

It didn't render in Firefox 109.0 on Linux and Mac, but does render in 109.0.1 (released in the last couple of days)

It fails to render properly for me with Firefox 109.0.1 (64 bit) on Windows 10, but does display the full page correctly when I revisit.

I hate to be negative (I really hope you are successful and I will definitely visit if I am ever in the area), but I personally think the website is a bit self-indulgent. The retro look (which I love) and the time it takes to render first time may well put off "casual" visitors, who may be looking for somewhere to visit and may give up before they can easily read the information they require (location, price, opening times). This is particularly true on an iPhone where, after the page has completed drawing, all that is visible is bottom of the message box, the "submit form" button, the social media links, and the cookie message. It would be nice if it automatically returned to the top of the page.

Simon

[EdwardianDuck]

It fails to render (stops after the top 4 lines of painfully slowly rendered text) on Firefox on MacOS Big Sur, works on Safari but also very slowly and caused the fans in my MacBook Pro to spin up, so I guess it's very resource heavy. That's not a thing most websites I visit cause to happen.

As someone who is generally interested in old computers, I was bored by the time the page finally finished rendering and disappointed that after all that I have to give the site my email address to actually find out more. Or so it seemed. By that time I had completely lost interest and did not explore further. Sorry. It's a cute idea, but in the modern world my view is that's it's just too quirky/annoying. I have no idea what the younger generations would make of it.

Disclaimer. Manchester is too far away for me to bother visiting, so you could argue my comments aren't relevant.

[EdwardianDuck]

Update. On Firefox it stops after the 4 line header. If you reload the page once or twice by clicking the refresh button in Firefox, you then get the fully rendered page instantly, but not necessarily on the first refresh. Strange.

[z0m8ied0g]

Thanks I'll pass that on and get them to look at it.
As for the website, yep I agree but we unfortunately have a bunch of enthusiastic volunteers who are working on it I will mention it to them and see if they can come up with something a little more traditional.
Myself I think we should do it in the 90s style with lots of animated GIFs and copious use of the marquee

[Yrrah2]

Hi Stephen,

We talked about this the other week at ABUG and then I managed to miss this announcement otherwise I'd have come along. How did it go? Did you get any pictures? What's the plan for official opening or other test days?

D

The museum is now open to visit, not all of the exhibits etc are currently running but a lot are.
We are open Wednesday - Sunday 10am - 4pm.

https://nwcomputermuseum.org.uk

The official opening will hopefully be sometime in February, I'll post something when I know more.

I'll sort out a few pics an post.

Brilliant site!

[z0m8ied0g]

Thanks I'll pass that on and get them to look at it.
As for the website, yep I agree but we unfortunately have a bunch of enthusiastic volunteers who are working on it I will mention it to them and see if they can come up with something a little more traditional.
Myself I think we should do it in the 90s style with lots of animated GIFs and copious use of the marquee

Just to follow this up the guys doing the website have looked into the speed issue and hopefully its sorted now