Yesterday afternoon, while searching for a new enclosure for my external hard drive at RE•PC (fist-shaking in the general direction of the Apple Store), I stumbled upon the Northwest Computer Museum---a room-size shrine to the early days of computing, from mathematician Charles Babbage's attempts to build a calculating machine in the 1870s, to an early "mini-computer" the size of a large modern printer, to the Commodore 64s and Apple Lisas of my childhood.

Unlike most museums of its sort, the NW Computer Museum lets you walk right up and touch the machines (be warned, though, that if you try to open any of the big old boxes, you'll be asked to leave). I don't know my computers pre-1982 or so (hello, Ms. Scisson!) but here's some of the cool stuff you'll see if you go (admission free):