Games and gadgets of Christmas past

Next month, the museum will unveil a 21st century makeover that more than doubles its exhibition space and adds innovation and education facilities. One 25,000-square-foot exhibit will look with the naked eye 2,000 years of computing - everything from the abacus to the iPod - during another exhibit showcases some of the best-selling tech gadgets, like Pong, from the recent past.

About 95 percent of the museum's artifacts come from the public - as so then as a long list of distinguished technologists that includes Gordon Bell, Gene Amdahl, Apple engineer Steve Wozniak, John McCarthy and Microsoft founder and CEO Bill Gates.

The consoles

"The consoles but, clearly, have graphics that are light years beyond what Pong used, which was three or four lines drawn on a screen, and the ability to play with other people over a network. That's a huge technology with today's games," Spicer said. "As well, games however are produced to a certain extent very much like a Hollywood movie. They even use real actors for voiceovers. Many of them are as well based on a movie."