Musée Bolo - Informatique, culture numérique et jeu vidéo

What did computers look like before they could fit in a pocket? What could people create, imagine or experiment with twenty, forty or sixty years ago? And how have these inventions transformed our everyday lives?

Musée Bolo is a unique place to take a journey into the past of our present… and our future. Whether you are a technology enthusiast or simply curious, young or old, Musée Bolo offers a different perspective on the digital objects and technologies that shape our everyday lives and transform our society.

Its collection, one of the most important in Europe, includes thousands of computers, consoles and peripherals. The museum presents an emblematic selection that traces the evolution of computing and digital culture.

Younger visitors will discover machines that look nothing like the computers they know today. Others may recognise the computer they grew up with, their first mouse or a long-forgotten game console.

Through the original and playful exhibition Programmed Disappearance, visitors investigate the evolution of the computer by following five clues: miniaturisation, camouflage, oblivion, dissolution and humanisation.

Some will rediscover the Vaud-made Smaky microcomputers once used in schools, along with their mascot, Blupi. Others will marvel at the Cora 1 from 1963 and the impressive Cray supercomputers, true pioneers of scientific computing and numerical simulation in their time. As for the enigmatic black NeXT Cube, it takes us back to the origins of the World Wide Web: the first web server at CERN ran on a machine of this type.

With ELIZA, a conversational program created in the 1960s, Musée Bolo reminds us that the questions raised today by our interactions with artificial intelligence are far from new.

During guided tours and events, some machines are switched back on and brought to life for visitors: a chance to hear the familiar sound of a floppy disk drive once again, see a Smaky or Macintosh come back to life, and discover objects usually kept in the museum’s storage facilities.

Run entirely by volunteers, Musée Bolo thrives thanks to enthusiasts who restore, document and preserve this heritage.

A museum to discover, remember and marvel… and to see the technologies around us in a different light.