An Educational Exhibit Aimed at Demonstrating the Rate of Growth of Computer Technology to Graduate Students

This paper is an extended version of that presented at the conference Histelcon 2021 (IEEE). It provides a deeper illustration of the elements of the exhibit under development at the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Florence (Italy). The paper presented at Histelcon 2021 focussed on the birth of microprocessors, on the 8086, on an example of core memory and punched tape. In the following, though these arguments are still dealt with, much material has been added, including electromechanical calculators, medium-sized computer systems, personal computers, 8-bit microprocessors, disks, and other elements on the exhibit. The organization of the paper is quite different. It starts with a description of old computing machines (including a slide rule) before passing to the illustration of some more recent computer systems. The last part of the paper is dedicated to the illustration of the mentioned elements. Though there are many computer museums around the world, usually open to the general public, this exhibit is directed to the students of the Faculty, to enlighten the pace of development in computers.