The Bloop Museum

4 big boxes full of LED lighting tubes in the cargo area of a hatchback car.

It's about to get lit ... "lit"erally!

Puns aside, this three-digit number of T8 LED bulbs will drop Bloop's lighting costs by 80~85%!

aftermarket heatsinks and not blocking the vents is key! on the upshot, we do have a small collection of donor parts if all else fails.

A Bally Computer System in white with box, controllers resting on top of the smoked plastic that covers the game storage area. It sits on a nice woodgrain table, and racks of LPs are in the background.

Us! @inversephase.bsky.social even has a white bally:

A view down a PGX vendor aisle, with the Bloop booth on the right.

Last day of PGX! Come by and see us at #Pittsburgh #Gaming Expo in Monroeville, it's been a great weekend meeting folks!

#PGH #PGX2025

Update: When you enter, go straight past the PGX Merch table, and turn left. We're right there.

PGX starts today! Visit us in the expo hall, kinda near the middle on the left when you're going towards the arcade. (it's the fifth row, we think).

#Monroeville #PA #PGH #Pittsburgh #gaming #expo #retrogaming

a pretty sunset, with a few trees and hills in the horizon. shades of pink, purple, and orange.

Just a quick snapshot out of the back window at the museum.

What do you think, should we mount a camera to capture the sunsets here?

#Pittsburgh #PGH #PennHills #PA #sky

Buy Badges | PGX 2025

Going to PGX this weekend? We just got the time on @inversephase.bsky.social's panel, "The Computer Art Underground". It will be in Panel 2 at 1pm on Saturday!

If you haven't picked up a badge yet, you can get 10% off with BLOOP2025 at pittsburghgamingexpo.com/buy-badges

#pittsburgh #PGH #PGX2025

Trouble in paradise getting delivery set up for our new address... Is there anyone out there with a mail+parcel delivery box that is lockable and tamper/theft-resistant that they're actually happy with?

A view of a Bissell Green Machine, and you can see half of a cleaned floor and half of a not-cleaned floor.

Let's hear it for our volunteers who have been vacuuming and @nocturnalplant.bsky.social who has been running the rug doctor for nearly two days on the second floor. We're not realistically opening up there for two years... we just really really really want the new #museum building to be clean!

tosdr.org
Okay, someone is doing the thing.
Apparently there are others like this!

In the interests of data archival, preservation, and historical logs, has anyone tracked the absolutely massive number of terms of service and policy changes with online institutions in the past year or so?

Pittsburgh Gaming Expo | 2025 The Pittsburgh Gaming Expo- a celebration of modern and retro gaming. Providing a community for gamers in the steel city, PGX is a show for everyone, with live music, entertainment, tabletop gaming, v...

Anyone going to #Pittsburgh Gaming Expo? #PGX is 3-5 Oct (~2weeks) at the #Monroeville Convention Center.

Maybe two panels from @inversephase.bsky.social, there will be lots of music and guest friends.

Get 10% off a prereg if you use code BLOOP2025. Sound cool?

pittsburghgamingexpo.com

Also, the new Bloop location is only 5~10 minutes away, we're not open yet but maybe ask for a private tour before or after the event? 🤔

Pittsburgh Gaming Expo | 2025 The Pittsburgh Gaming Expo- a celebration of modern and retro gaming. Providing a community for gamers in the steel city, PGX is a show for everyone, with live music, entertainment, tabletop gaming, v...

Anyone going to #Pittsburgh Gaming Expo? #PGX is 3-5 Oct (~2weeks) at the #Monroeville Convention Center.

Maybe two panels from @inversephase.bsky.social, there will be lots of music and guest friends.

Get 10% off a prereg if you use code BLOOP2025. Sound cool?

pittsburghgamingexpo.com

of course - we're just as honored! and hoping to see you at other events, too!

Back from #VCFMW! Kudos to the organizers; always a great time! Loved meeting (up with) everyone!

Thanks to
- @matt.godbolt.org - sleeping spot!
- @oldskool.org - the original impetus to go as @inversephase.bsky.social 8y ago
- @jeriellsworth.bsky.social - signing our DTV
- all who donated to us!

a palletized univac 418, teletype desk on its right, as seen from the front panel, in a parking lot. a forklift is parked to the right of the whole ordeal.

the saga of moving the #univac 418 continues...

#retrocomputing #mainframemonday #retrocomputer #mainframe #forklift #museum #computers #computing #technology #tech

archive.org probably has the hosting covered but once we're up and running in pittsburgh we can totally help with archival

No polls on bsky yet? Guess you'll have to vote on Mastodon: oldbytes.space/@bloopmuseum...

@molleindustria.org thanks for the follow! hopefully we can work together once we open in the 'burgh

also, "I'm happy to talk about your architectural trauma" is a very Pittsburgh line

thanks! we have a community of incredible volunteers in the new location, so we've been super lucky in that regard. getting packed is the hardest part!

the back of a front-to-back full 26' u-haul with furniture and network equipment

We're so busy packing trucks, moving, and unpacking, that we don't have time for an email update quite yet - but here's a shot of the most recent truck where we loaded up a bunch of fixtures from a closed-down Joann. Hope this will hold you over!

would love to talk to you about the museum sometime! this name at gmail if you prefer email

any chance we could talk about sending a bulk joblot to us across the pond? following so you can DM

Dude. We're right here, we already have that stuff hanging on the wall, and we're still cool to visit. 😜

they probably do

Does your company have a datacenter? Bloop is looking for some donations of reliable, high-capacity, identical harddrives aka spinning rust. Performance less of an issue. Maybe a dozen drives. Get in touch if you can help!