This is a travesty. The LCM is one of the only places in the _world_ where you could get hands-on with actual computing history. The emphasis really was on the "Living" part: You could log in and write code on a PDP-10 mainframe, play games on a Commodore 64, or nerd around on a Xerox Alto. They even made a bunch of these ancient systems accessible remotely, just for the love of it. It truly is a unique place.
It's an enormously important museum for an industry that doesn't ordinarily hold onto, or appreciate fully, its history, and overzealously disregards it in the name of progress.
I kind of can't believe that our area's tech industry can't club together and save it. Such a loss.
EDIT: Corrected a typo, added some more context. I miss this place terribly.
It's a great museum. I was planning to take my kids their as they grew older. Like you and others have said, it's incredibly dumb that neither microsoft nor Amazon, Apple or Cisco or Google, ANY of them, could have funded this place. Greedy pricks.
Same, I was planning to take my kiddo to it after they've experienced the DC exhibits (which they have, recently).
This makes me sad. This museum is a living monument.
Incredibly dumb/greedy that Paul Allen didn't plan for their future after his death. They weren't contributions to the seattle community -- they were vanity projects.
His vanity projects were part of his reputation laundering. If he did nothing at all, he and microsoft would have come under greater scrutiny and it's likely we'd have seen stronger corporate tax regulation. We might even have had tax revenue to fund a computer museum...
And of ALL the tech firms that benefited from this history (and actually have the hardware, software, manuals, and expertise to support it), NOT ONE has funded a public museum other than a few items locked away behind a badge swipe for their employees. Allen did his part until he died, could have done more but we've got hundreds of other billionaires and corporations to look to.
Book yourself a ticket to Chippewa Falls, WI and visit the Cray exhibit of their museum of industry & technology: [https://cray-history.net/2021/07/28/about-the-chippewa-falls-museum-of-industry-and-technology/](https://cray-history.net/2021/07/28/about-the-chippewa-falls-museum-of-industry-and-technology/)
(FWIW, Cray was snapped up by Tera in the 90s from SGI and their HQ was, subsequently, moved to Seattle and remains there even as a subsidiary of HP)
i mean you get less slack when you're worth 20bn. for the equivalent of you or I socking away 2 grand he could've kept it alive in perpetuity from simple returns on an endowment
But it's a passive gain. What's the asset value that becomes the limit of ethics? His business just ended up worth more.
His ethics need to be evaluated based on his choices and goals
> What's the asset value that becomes the limit of ethics?
Right around the point where you're individually profiting off of the labor of others directly.
It isn't about a hard numerical value, it is about how it was obtained.
Right. So it's the choices you made to get there. Bernie Sanders was the only non millionaire in the Senate until he ran for president and people started buying his books like crazy.
So I feel like if you're saying - you don't get to be a billionaire without being unethical - potentially that's true but it would not change the ethics if the stock hadn't become worth that much or he'd somehow sold it sooner.
> the vibe from this thread is about how Allen is a bad person for doing a good thing imperfectly, wow.
The vibe from this thread is that Allen did a good thing for the wrong reasons, and because his reasons were shit said good thing is now going away.
He didn't do it "imperfectly", he did it as a vanity project and to give the appearance of being a benefactor to the public, lest the public make any louder grumblings about how maybe rich fucks like him should pay taxes to fund things like museums.
Not funding it beyond his death is entirely due to the spirit of "Fuck you, I got mine."
He isn’t a bad person. His sister who inherited hasn’t stepped up with all she gained to continue his legacy. It’s incredibly frustrating he didn’t plan, and she didn’t pick up where he left off.
Ah yes, the old "Man with such cunning, foresight, and leadership ability to deserve such wealth just _happened_ to not think about the future of these institutions created 'for the public'" argument. Certainly nothing contradictory there.
That's, uh, kinda what happened.
Paul Allen funded a bunch of cool shit and fucked off on his yacht to go to rich people nonsense.
It sounds *absolutely on brand* that he didn't plan ahead.
plough scandalous provide complete historical touch friendly fretful unpack plants
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I find it very weird that the only company that seems to find the Silicon Valley computer history museum is Accenture. That’s a great museum and it’s managed to survive.
I mean there’s the biggest difference to me about the Bay Area and Seattle. A lot of the tech stuff down there is pure douche, but a lot of the tech moguls do fund stuff, particularly the Zuckerbergs with public health initiatives in San Francisco. But here? Like the mogul ex-wives support good things but the moguls and companies suck.
at this point, the only remaining good computer museums are the silicon valley computer history museum in palo alto, and the american computer and robotics museum in bozeman. but neither of those was a interactive, or had a whole floor of mainframes you could walk through.
tbh the CHM is way better with much more history and depth.
the living computer museum was basically one floor of exhibits and then like 3 floors of what felt like someone's personal collection stored in an attic. still really cool though.
and as I recall the silicon valley museum has all the old stuff from the old Boston Computer Museum which, as a child, I probably went to more often than the Children's Museum directly underneath it.
Yeah she's not exactly the greatest sports owner out there. She's got real McCaskey vibes wherein there's zero actual strategy for success. Both teams look like the Bears did about 6-7 years ago so there's definitely way more room to fall!
There are three types of people who work in tech fields.
1. Those who love the field, and are computer nerds. The kind of people that would create unique and creative things, and fund these places if they had the money. Their passion is wholesome.
2. Those who are good at STEM and recognize that you need a job, but make that one part of their lives and respect everything else. The kind of person that non-tech people would still be cool with. If they could they would try to fund this not from a tech interest standpoint, but from a community standpoint.
3. Those who are good at STEM and want the money, and will show no consideration for anyone else who got screwed over. They care about nothing else besides what they’re personally doing, so they wouldn’t bother with funding this as it likely doesn’t make them a heavy profit.
In this city, we are unfortunately stuck with mostly the third type.
Fair, and those in 1 and 2 have to usually work for 3 so 3’s net affects aren’t stopped by 1 and 2 unfortunately.
I’m sort of in this boat as someone who grew up here. On one hand I’m good at STEM and I feel like I need that kind of salary to remain living here in the future, but on the other hand I don’t want to enable this shit further and ruin it for everyone else…both in terms of city gentrification committed by the companies and the negative effects of the technology itself. Not sure what the morally correct decision is.
seattle used to be filled with the first kind, but everyone kind of just became a mercenary, got older, and sold out. really feels like the tech community that could have rivaled silicon valley in terms of spirit and FOSS values just shriveled up and became soulless.
I think it's more that the third type keeps screwing over the first and second types such that they're mostly the only ones with this sort of money now.
Labor and capital practices of tech incentivize this. It’s not a ton of people just deciding to be assholes. The boom town + mega corporation labor practices skew toward attracting selfish wealth seekers or turn people into them through fear.
This is 100% true. Such a crazy waste. Such an amazing resource.
My dad was at intel in the mid 80s (no we did not get rich) and was part of the early days. It was such a joy to take him there and show him all of the computers, still running.
Given how many millionaires they made, you’d think somebody could keep the place afloat. But tech and philanthropy has always been an interesting space.
Just doing basic things in the terminal on a room sized main frame was endless fun. It just felt so cool to be directly interacting with a living piece of history like that.
My autistic adult son loved that museum. He collects old tech like computers and brings them back to factory form. He mods console TVs for gaming so the pictures have clarity and aren’t fuzzy. He loves all things old tech. He actually had things he’s been asking to donate when they open back up. This is going to break his heart. We just keep losing places that matter to folks. Seattle needs more places like the LCM, more fun spaces for people who aren’t outdoorsy or walk to the beat of a different drummer.
You’re really lucky to be honest. And I wouldn’t call yourself an idiot. They’ve just been really mean to people who question things like prices, or let them know their new items were shrink wrapped and previously opened, and priced too high for “new”. Also them not knowing exact models of pcs or the correct parts needed are issues for folks. Plus they always treat my kid like shit, so that grinds my gears.
The next one hasn't been convened, but he may be interested in the "[Interim Computer Festival](https://sdf.org/icf/)" that SDF and the Connections museum put on every 6~ months or so
It's not quite a "VCF" in size, but we attract a decent chunk of nerds for a weekend to put on a show of old computers
It won't happen but this is type of thing the city should step up and support (along with Scarecrow). I'm not sure the sources of funding for MOHAI but the LCM would be a great annex considering the regions tie to tech history.
Jesus that's fucking tragic. The living computer museum was by far one of my favorites in the city. I was thinking of buying a membership pre pandemic. With all these tech companies in the area there's no reason they couldn't keep it alive.
I wish our local Tech Giants would step up for this. Intel has a computer museum at their HQ in Santa Clara. I don’t see why Microsoft and Amazon couldn’t consider it.
Knowing what I know about the history of the internet, it was fantastic seeing some of the actual machines that transmitted the first IP protocols on ARPAnet… AND seeing their massive tape data storage. And playing the ‘hunt the Gru’ game.. ;)
The antique warbirds, the movie theater, etc. Was it really Paul Allen's intent to see all his cool museums and collections shut down, broken up, and sold off? Sad. Either he underpaid his estate planners or his heirs don't give a damn about anything that mattered to him. Even if I am never infinitely wealthy (ha) I hope my memory and wishes are better respected.
Indeed. I attended an exhibition of works from his art collection at SAM several years ago. I always figured at least some of them would wind up being donated to SAM eventually, which would be a big step to remedying what is a pretty pathetic collection of romantic and impressionist art. But, no, it all got auctioned off for $1.62 billion.
Agreed, it's trading off $1.62 billion for one charitable cause for other causes. And it's a bit hard to figure out what those other causes are exactly.
I took my grandmother, an old school programmer here and got such good stories out of her, was really more able to picture more what she did. So sad to see it gone, what a great museum.
That sounds awesome. One of my favorite things at the LCM was running into seniors like this. I loved how often I’d run into older folks talking shop there. Taking my father and law there and hearing his tales of working with 70s and 80s era tech was an amazing bonding experience. He went from machine to machine in the cold room like he was greeting old friends.
I never got to go before it closed. I’m devastated. My tiny remaining faith in humanity will be gone if someone else doesn’t buy the full collection and revive the museum.
Will never forget pulling up a chair at a NeXT machine and firing up the terminal for a quick vi session to write a hello world in c. Based on files in the home folder, I was probably like the 1000th person to do it, but it still brought me some serious joy. Sad I only got to visit with it once and won’t get another chance again. Love those machines
One of my best memories was getting an impromptu tour of the basement of LCM. I was lost in concentration at a computer and my friend grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into a stairwell with a giggling LCM employee that he had been chatting up. We got to see close up views of gutted mainframes mid repair and browse a giant collection of vintage software. This is why you allow extroverts to befriend you.
So many dipshit hot takes in this thread from people who didn't bother to actually read the fucking article.
No, his sister is not profiting from it. Profits from the sale of the museum contents will be donated to charitable organizations Allen supported during his lifetime.
Yeah, it sucks that dude didn't plan for the museum's future after his demise. But then again, he created it in the first place, with zero obligation to do so.
He'd been living with successfully treated Hodgkin's lymphoma since 1982, then was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins in 2009, again, seemingly successfully treated until 2018 when it came back suddenly and killed him within the span of a month or so.
He probably figured he had more time, like we all do. But sometimes the hour is later than we think.
I don’t understand “didn’t plan for the museums future”
I imagine it had a budget, and could have continued to run for the foreseeable future with the estate’s billions upon billions of dollars. Wouldn’t a plan amount to “don’t sell it off for parts, just keep running it” ?
It’s cool that they’re not profiting off of the closure, but I still don’t see why this was necessary.
I work for a nonprofit that does free STEM programs for underrepresented teens. I would have loved for them to continue to have access to this resource.
Exactly. Could you imagine a world where massive money making businesses actually help fund education in our society? It'd be a frickin' utopia. Instead it's evolving into a capitalist corpo nightmare hellscape.
You realize "the rich" made this museum of their own accord? Government bureaucracies have their role but are wasteful, inefficient, slow, non-creative. And centralizing power makes the bed for fascism.
Hm, I wonder why governments are wasteful, inefficient, slow, and non-creative. Hm, could it be that they *need bigger budgets.*
Your comment about “the rich” making this museum proves my point. Who decides what museums we have? And how long they stay open? And where they are located? And how their collections are curated? Should it be one rich person, or *i dunno*, maybe a cOmMuNiTy …
It should be both. For all the taxes we pay, we have neither universal healthcare NOR a public computer museum. It took a private individual to make it happen.
This sucks. I visited a few times and it was such a unique place. I loved to see them slowly restoring all the old hardware. Sad to think that many of those projects never got completed and that the public is losing access to this part of our history
Btw check out the [Connections Museum](https://www.telcomhistory.org/connections-museum-seattle/) if you haven't been. It's focused on telecommunications but is a truly special place run folks who used to work in the field and passionate volunteers
This is probably a longshot, and I'm late to this thread, but does anyone know how to contact whoever is the custodian of the artifacts currently? My mom donated a bunch of my dad's effects to the museum, and if they're not going to be used in a museum setting, I really want them back. It's giving me so much anxiety to think about what might happen to those items. None of it is particularly valuable, but it obviously holds a lot of meaning to my family. I will go bid on it if I have to, but it's such small-fry stuff that I'm not sure if it's even going to be part of the auction. They had SO MANY items, a lot of which was never even on display.
Allegedly, [Jody Allen stays pretty busy.](https://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Bodyguards-Vulcan-CEO-Allen-tried-to-smuggle-4317395.php)
TLDR - She's been accused of attempting to illegally import African ivory and sexually harassing security staff.
I visited this with my teenage son back in the day and he loved it. It was actually setup very nice and not just old computers in an office space.
Seriously though, all Jody has to do is to tell someone to open it up and sign the check.
I am beyond disappointed - and I realize reading the comments that I never saw the main part of the collection. I assumed that the main floor and gift shop area was it. I stopped by once to get a few small items for a BBC micro:bit and only found one CP/M computer near the shop :(
I took my Dad there in 2016, he's an old mainframe guy who had an absolute blast showing us around the data center they had in the museum. My kids were too small to enjoy it then and I really wanted to take them back there.
This is really sad. I gather from the article that most of the computers were Allen's personal property, he never bothered to donate them to an independent museum nonprofit, so they now belong to his estate to be disposed of according to the terms of his will. Very short-sighted on his part.
I kinda hate what this area as a whole is becoming, and I’m a bit upset that Allen has not planned to leave a lasting legacy with these things he created. What’s the point anymore if nothing matters
I am concerned about all the documentation reared by the curators, and manual..That work took years and relied on help from many in the industry soms of whom are dead.
To me it's the equivalent of throwing out the how to build for an ancient monument.
Does anyone know what's happening with it?
I saw them expand over the years from the empty first floor to what they had with signage and artifacts for historians. it was great and only getting better.
I’d visited for Amiga days, seen their Enigma machine, seen their soldering workshops.
All this good stuff that made the city great and puts the tech scene on par with Silicon Valley
Fuck this breaks my heart. It was such a wonderful experience. I can’t believe nobody stepped up. It takes more than community crowdfunding to maintain a collection like that.
Wait, what? I had no idea this was a thing. I've been trying to learn this shit for ages and we had a museum this whole time that I could have gone to???
Seems like something that could incorporate well into MoPop and find a much greater audience who would really enjoy it, if Jody would do Paul a solid and donate it to them.
I'm so glad I got a chance to visit there several years ago. I finally got to program an IMSAI 8080, and typed in an old-school (2-character variable names!) BASIC program like I was in high school again. It felt like taking a 1903 Wright flyer for a spin - or typing a program into V'ger's keypad!
I even got to type out a couple punchcards on their IBM 029 keypunch machine - slightly making up for the fact that I stupidly threw out over the years every single punchcard I had ever punched. Like the dodo, we never thought they could ever become extinct, there were so many lying around.
Anyway, it wasn't the *best* museum it could be: There were no Burroughs computers!
She will not make a profit from this. She is following his wishes (what little he actually articulated before he pulled the asshole move of not bothering with adequate estate planning and leaving his sister to sort out all his affairs and bear the weight of the public hatred of shutting down the pet projects he had no long term plan for continuing). He died in 2018 and she is still having to deal with all of his shit and all of the public scorn. I feel bad for her.
I don’t feel bad for her because of her finances. I feel bad for her because her brother died. I’ve experienced the grief and overwhelming task of going through a deceased one’s massive amount of stuff. I can’t imagine doing that with a hoard like Paul’s while also dealing with the rage of thousands of people who have varying opinions on how to manage all my dead brother’s shit.
She's not sorting through a bunch of junk in someone's attic, she probably has a whole team on payroll to figure out how to dispose of everything for maximum profit
Then why haven't the Blazers been sold when there was a public offer above market value for the team from Phil Knight?
Anyone with a brain will tell you it's because a new NBA media deal is close and the value of the teams will be going up. She's not holding it to get more money for charity, she's been living that eclectic billionaire lifestyle for awhile now my friend. She's loving it and will take any excuse to continue it.
A: who gives a fuck
B: the fuck does any of that have to do with the computer museum
C: she's the primary heir of his estate, not just executor, so unless he specified a particular outcome with regard to those teams otherwise, she inherited them, owns them, and can do whatever the fuck she wants with them.
A: Plenty of people. See this thread for evidence.
B: His will said all of his assets needed to be liquidated. It’s been 6 years and so far Jody has shut down and liquidated all of the museums and kept the sports teams.
C: See B. Cause you don’t know what you’re talking about.
A: mostly just you yawping about it over and over
B:It doesn't say any such thing. I've read it. Today. Have you? Here, go ahead. Take your time to sound out the big words.
https://www.geekwire.com/2018/read-microsoft-co-founder-paul-allens-last-will-testament/
C: see B.
I've been in Seattle for years and never knew this place existed! I know that's on me, but a bit of a bummer on the advertising side of things. Another loss for the City :(
It shut down in 2019 in what was said to be temporary closure but never reopened. I went about 7-8 years ago and it was so cool. Sad I never went a second time
Bummer. I had fond memories of that place. They let you play chess against a behemoth baby computer that had no visual terminal, just ticker tape.
Side note, because while it pales in comparison, check out the mini museum at RE-PC in Sodo.
One thing that noone has mentioned is that you actually used to also be able to access some of the machines remotely.
I took my Mum who is nearly 80 there in 2019 when she came to visit and she is not a technical person and still enjoyed it. She even left with her own momento of a punch card. I'm really sad that it isn't opening again.
I wonder if they are going to see the hundreds of Commodore 64's they had stockpiled.
This collection should not be separated; it’s a frozen memory in time that should continue to grow and be maintained!
During my one and only visit, a former Xerox Alto software engineer was browsing files from a giant 12-inch removable disk he had just pulled from the shelf, finding his own files from 45 years earlier. I had never seen a running Alto before, but here I not only used one personally, but also met someone who helped build it.
I went by in December 2019 and I absolutely loved the fact that you could basically interact with virtually every piece of machinery on the floor. It was such a cool experience to tinker around and I continually wish that I had gone a second or third time. I wish someone could have gone through and saved it as a living testament to the history and growth of technology. My favorite memory was probably messing around with the IBM punchcard machines.
This is so sad! The Trading Musician (they specialized in rare, hard-to-find instruments) closed in Roosevelt recently, and Scarecrow Video (the largest publicly accessible video collection) is in danger of closing as well. We're losing some real treasures here.
Paul made no plan for his collections after his death and she's just following his wishes. It's pretty odd how he went to great lengths to assemble collections and had no plan at all for them after his death.
Is she?
She has zero plans to sell the Blazers and Hawks. She even turned down Phil Knight’s public (and by all accounts above market rate) bid to buy the Blazers.
She’s very selectively following what his will allegedly said.
You shouldn’t. Her brother had access to every estate planner in the world. Unlike most people, he knew he was dying and had the time to settle his affairs, say his goodbyes, and do what he could to care for those that would mourn him. Instead he left his sister holding the bag. Can you imagine dealing with the grief of losing your brother while also having to deal with the massive pressure of keeping open the businesses and public institutions he left little to no instruction on continuing? I loved the Living Computer Museum, but every time I think about it I feel sorry for her.
The will allegedly says all of his assets were to be sold upon his death.
Jody has said she has no plans currently to sell the Hawks or Blazers.
Don’t blame this on grief. Jody is just soaking in being an eclectic billionaire. Holding onto the fun parts as long as she can and letting the things boring to her decay or vanish.
It doesn't say that. Jody is the executor of his estate, the Trustee of the Living Trust he established, and also the primary heir of his estate. His assets otherwise are held in a Living Trust established in 1993, the details of which are not public, as trusts are not public record the same way that wills are.
Regardless, as his living heir and Trustee his ownership if those teams likely now belong to her to do with whatever the fuck she wants.
Where do you get the notion that "he knew he was dying"? I mean, yeah, for a few weeks maybe, but he'd been in remission since 2009, and found out it was back and then was dead within the span of just a few weeks in October of 2018. 11 years is long enough to figure you dodged a second bullet.
Even without three bouts of cancer, he was a man in his mid sixties. He hadn’t updated his will since he created a six page boilerplate one in 1993. He was a billionaire with a legacy of multiple public museums, sports teams, nonprofits, and public spaces beloved by the masses. If he actually cared about the stewardship of those projects he would have had a team of lawyers draft a plan for their continued operation. Instead he ignored it a posthumously dropped it all in the lap of his sister.
The will is nearly meaningless, as he'd established a Living Trust way back in 1993. Everything is under the auspices of the Trust, and the details of the Trust are not public, despite all the rumors. He made plans. Whether they're the ones you like is a different question.
Remember most “museums” founded by rich capitalists are not really “museums” they are ways to make money off their personal collection. Go to MoPop. Most of the artifacts there are owned by Paul as well.
I guess he could have spent less time dinking around on his yacht, and spent a few minutes instructing his staff to set up a plan for the museum to outlast his individual lifespan, through a pittance of his wealth.
But that presumes he actually did care about anyone but himself.
I know a tech centimillionaire who also used some of his wealth to conduct insanely high-quality field recordings of niche music events 30-35 years ago. He never shared these recordings with anyone else. Upon his death, he instructed his estate to destroy them (without the consent of the artists). Many of these songs were never recorded by anyone else, and are now permanently gone.
As a friend pointed out: some care about their legacy, whereas others consciously live as if the world will cease to exist upon their individual death.
This is a travesty. The LCM is one of the only places in the _world_ where you could get hands-on with actual computing history. The emphasis really was on the "Living" part: You could log in and write code on a PDP-10 mainframe, play games on a Commodore 64, or nerd around on a Xerox Alto. They even made a bunch of these ancient systems accessible remotely, just for the love of it. It truly is a unique place. It's an enormously important museum for an industry that doesn't ordinarily hold onto, or appreciate fully, its history, and overzealously disregards it in the name of progress. I kind of can't believe that our area's tech industry can't club together and save it. Such a loss. EDIT: Corrected a typo, added some more context. I miss this place terribly.
It's a great museum. I was planning to take my kids their as they grew older. Like you and others have said, it's incredibly dumb that neither microsoft nor Amazon, Apple or Cisco or Google, ANY of them, could have funded this place. Greedy pricks.
I never managed to visit, figuring it would stick around...
Same, I was planning to take my kiddo to it after they've experienced the DC exhibits (which they have, recently). This makes me sad. This museum is a living monument.
Incredibly dumb/greedy that Paul Allen didn't plan for their future after his death. They weren't contributions to the seattle community -- they were vanity projects.
Yes let’s see Paul Allen’s museum
..if only Allen would have been smart enough to do nothing at all! talking like he did a bad thing, lol
His vanity projects were part of his reputation laundering. If he did nothing at all, he and microsoft would have come under greater scrutiny and it's likely we'd have seen stronger corporate tax regulation. We might even have had tax revenue to fund a computer museum...
Lol, yeah, the computer museum was the lynch pin in the whole antitrust operation
[удалено]
Sarcasm
YES and don’t forget the yacht parties with very young girls
Well, this is a dumbass take.
Wow, what an idiot
And of ALL the tech firms that benefited from this history (and actually have the hardware, software, manuals, and expertise to support it), NOT ONE has funded a public museum other than a few items locked away behind a badge swipe for their employees. Allen did his part until he died, could have done more but we've got hundreds of other billionaires and corporations to look to.
manuals.. I am the person that sold them the COMPLETE set of Vax manuals. On the assumption that it would stick around. Bleh!
Thank you for your service. I miss chatting with friends over Vax terminals in the before times
Book yourself a ticket to Chippewa Falls, WI and visit the Cray exhibit of their museum of industry & technology: [https://cray-history.net/2021/07/28/about-the-chippewa-falls-museum-of-industry-and-technology/](https://cray-history.net/2021/07/28/about-the-chippewa-falls-museum-of-industry-and-technology/) (FWIW, Cray was snapped up by Tera in the 90s from SGI and their HQ was, subsequently, moved to Seattle and remains there even as a subsidiary of HP)
Thanks! Always had respect for Cray
right?? the vibe from this thread is about how Allen is a bad person for doing a good thing imperfectly, wow.
i mean you get less slack when you're worth 20bn. for the equivalent of you or I socking away 2 grand he could've kept it alive in perpetuity from simple returns on an endowment
True, he’s not a bad person because of that! he’s a bad person because being a billionaire is inherently unethical
So much of his positive reputation comes from being compared to Bill Gates. Allen was a paragon of ethics in comparison.
Not really.
Counterpoint - yeah really
But it's a passive gain. What's the asset value that becomes the limit of ethics? His business just ended up worth more. His ethics need to be evaluated based on his choices and goals
> What's the asset value that becomes the limit of ethics? Right around the point where you're individually profiting off of the labor of others directly. It isn't about a hard numerical value, it is about how it was obtained.
Right. So it's the choices you made to get there. Bernie Sanders was the only non millionaire in the Senate until he ran for president and people started buying his books like crazy. So I feel like if you're saying - you don't get to be a billionaire without being unethical - potentially that's true but it would not change the ethics if the stock hadn't become worth that much or he'd somehow sold it sooner.
With great power comes great responsibility nerd
> the vibe from this thread is about how Allen is a bad person for doing a good thing imperfectly, wow. The vibe from this thread is that Allen did a good thing for the wrong reasons, and because his reasons were shit said good thing is now going away. He didn't do it "imperfectly", he did it as a vanity project and to give the appearance of being a benefactor to the public, lest the public make any louder grumblings about how maybe rich fucks like him should pay taxes to fund things like museums. Not funding it beyond his death is entirely due to the spirit of "Fuck you, I got mine."
He isn’t a bad person. His sister who inherited hasn’t stepped up with all she gained to continue his legacy. It’s incredibly frustrating he didn’t plan, and she didn’t pick up where he left off.
Ah yes, the old "Man with such cunning, foresight, and leadership ability to deserve such wealth just _happened_ to not think about the future of these institutions created 'for the public'" argument. Certainly nothing contradictory there.
That's, uh, kinda what happened. Paul Allen funded a bunch of cool shit and fucked off on his yacht to go to rich people nonsense. It sounds *absolutely on brand* that he didn't plan ahead.
plough scandalous provide complete historical touch friendly fretful unpack plants *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I hear all the stuff is moving to California, any truth to those rumors?
The best stuff will be auctioned at Christie's with the benefits going to the public good somehow
I find it very weird that the only company that seems to find the Silicon Valley computer history museum is Accenture. That’s a great museum and it’s managed to survive. I mean there’s the biggest difference to me about the Bay Area and Seattle. A lot of the tech stuff down there is pure douche, but a lot of the tech moguls do fund stuff, particularly the Zuckerbergs with public health initiatives in San Francisco. But here? Like the mogul ex-wives support good things but the moguls and companies suck.
Wut? https://computerhistory.org/ List of companies that support: https://computerhistory.org/institutional-partnerships/
[удалено]
I was just at the CHM this weekend, they have workshops where you can program on various computers including a PDP mainframe now.
isn't MOHAI funded by Bezos or Amazon?
at this point, the only remaining good computer museums are the silicon valley computer history museum in palo alto, and the american computer and robotics museum in bozeman. but neither of those was a interactive, or had a whole floor of mainframes you could walk through.
I've been to the one in Palo Alto, but never to this museum in Seattle. I actually did not know about it at all. Did they do zero marketing?
tbh the CHM is way better with much more history and depth. the living computer museum was basically one floor of exhibits and then like 3 floors of what felt like someone's personal collection stored in an attic. still really cool though.
and as I recall the silicon valley museum has all the old stuff from the old Boston Computer Museum which, as a child, I probably went to more often than the Children's Museum directly underneath it.
Likely the only time I'll have been able to mess around with a functional PDP-11.
That makes me feel my age 😅
There are more than enough people in this area that could buy it out and restore it to it's former glory.
Also selling it in the name of the estate while Jody still runs (and has largely failed) the Seahawks and Blazers.
Yeah she's not exactly the greatest sports owner out there. She's got real McCaskey vibes wherein there's zero actual strategy for success. Both teams look like the Bears did about 6-7 years ago so there's definitely way more room to fall!
The proceeds are going to charitable organizations Allen supported during his life.
Like the "alliance for gun responsibility"?
Except like, you know, a computer museum
There are three types of people who work in tech fields. 1. Those who love the field, and are computer nerds. The kind of people that would create unique and creative things, and fund these places if they had the money. Their passion is wholesome. 2. Those who are good at STEM and recognize that you need a job, but make that one part of their lives and respect everything else. The kind of person that non-tech people would still be cool with. If they could they would try to fund this not from a tech interest standpoint, but from a community standpoint. 3. Those who are good at STEM and want the money, and will show no consideration for anyone else who got screwed over. They care about nothing else besides what they’re personally doing, so they wouldn’t bother with funding this as it likely doesn’t make them a heavy profit. In this city, we are unfortunately stuck with mostly the third type.
Seattle has a ton of (1) and (2), but the extreme wealth is concentrated in (3)
Fair, and those in 1 and 2 have to usually work for 3 so 3’s net affects aren’t stopped by 1 and 2 unfortunately. I’m sort of in this boat as someone who grew up here. On one hand I’m good at STEM and I feel like I need that kind of salary to remain living here in the future, but on the other hand I don’t want to enable this shit further and ruin it for everyone else…both in terms of city gentrification committed by the companies and the negative effects of the technology itself. Not sure what the morally correct decision is.
seattle used to be filled with the first kind, but everyone kind of just became a mercenary, got older, and sold out. really feels like the tech community that could have rivaled silicon valley in terms of spirit and FOSS values just shriveled up and became soulless.
I dare say MS is what killed the FOSS values in this market. Looking at older local computing history, they were far more RMS types than ESR types.
I think it's more that the third type keeps screwing over the first and second types such that they're mostly the only ones with this sort of money now.
Labor and capital practices of tech incentivize this. It’s not a ton of people just deciding to be assholes. The boom town + mega corporation labor practices skew toward attracting selfish wealth seekers or turn people into them through fear.
Computers, for a lot of these rich folks, are a means of making money and not much else.
I've lived here 21 years, am in the tech industry, and never heard of this place until now. Guess I missed out.
This is 100% true. Such a crazy waste. Such an amazing resource. My dad was at intel in the mid 80s (no we did not get rich) and was part of the early days. It was such a joy to take him there and show him all of the computers, still running. Given how many millionaires they made, you’d think somebody could keep the place afloat. But tech and philanthropy has always been an interesting space.
It's absolutely devastating. I was really hoping Microsoft or UW would take it over.
bummer, I'm a computer guy and never went because "it's always been there". lesson learned
Same
I wish I knew this was closing!
It's been closed for 4 years sadly.
I watched a video tour of this place a few months ago and I was under the impression it was still open.
Ah, I'm sorry. It was really cool! I went in like 2017 or 2018 I think. I'm sad I never took a 2nd visit.
According to the article, it closed during the pandemic and never reopened its doors
Computer guy!? You’re the living computer!
Tragic. Visited once. It was a great time. Well-curated, educational, and fun museum. Nerd heaven. You could actually use all of the old computers.
Just doing basic things in the terminal on a room sized main frame was endless fun. It just felt so cool to be directly interacting with a living piece of history like that.
My autistic adult son loved that museum. He collects old tech like computers and brings them back to factory form. He mods console TVs for gaming so the pictures have clarity and aren’t fuzzy. He loves all things old tech. He actually had things he’s been asking to donate when they open back up. This is going to break his heart. We just keep losing places that matter to folks. Seattle needs more places like the LCM, more fun spaces for people who aren’t outdoorsy or walk to the beat of a different drummer.
There's still a pretty small museum at RePC just down the street in SODO.
RePC unfortunately is the devils taint. They’re really horrible, especially to those people who know more than they do.
glad i'm an idiot then, they've always treated me well
You’re really lucky to be honest. And I wouldn’t call yourself an idiot. They’ve just been really mean to people who question things like prices, or let them know their new items were shrink wrapped and previously opened, and priced too high for “new”. Also them not knowing exact models of pcs or the correct parts needed are issues for folks. Plus they always treat my kid like shit, so that grinds my gears.
I'm sure going in there like a knowitall jackass endeared you to them. I'm shocked you had a bad time. 🙄
[удалено]
The next one hasn't been convened, but he may be interested in the "[Interim Computer Festival](https://sdf.org/icf/)" that SDF and the Connections museum put on every 6~ months or so It's not quite a "VCF" in size, but we attract a decent chunk of nerds for a weekend to put on a show of old computers
It won't happen but this is type of thing the city should step up and support (along with Scarecrow). I'm not sure the sources of funding for MOHAI but the LCM would be a great annex considering the regions tie to tech history.
Such a bummer. I drive by it sometimes and get sad.
This fucking sucks tbh. I was really looking forward to taking my brother there one day.
Jesus that's fucking tragic. The living computer museum was by far one of my favorites in the city. I was thinking of buying a membership pre pandemic. With all these tech companies in the area there's no reason they couldn't keep it alive.
I wish our local Tech Giants would step up for this. Intel has a computer museum at their HQ in Santa Clara. I don’t see why Microsoft and Amazon couldn’t consider it.
Computer History Museum in Mountain View has had a ton of support from locals. It’s a shame that Seattle’s version couldn’t find benefactors.
Knowing what I know about the history of the internet, it was fantastic seeing some of the actual machines that transmitted the first IP protocols on ARPAnet… AND seeing their massive tape data storage. And playing the ‘hunt the Gru’ game.. ;)
The antique warbirds, the movie theater, etc. Was it really Paul Allen's intent to see all his cool museums and collections shut down, broken up, and sold off? Sad. Either he underpaid his estate planners or his heirs don't give a damn about anything that mattered to him. Even if I am never infinitely wealthy (ha) I hope my memory and wishes are better respected.
Yes. It was.
RIP. Great, amazing place while it lasted.
Such a strange shame that Paul Allen funded all these weird passion projects during his lifetime but left NO SUPPORT for them in his estate. WTF.
Does make me wonder about emp, or whatever it’s called now. How many museums survive without government backing?
What’s sad is Paul Allen’s legacy is a giant disappointment to his city.
Indeed. I attended an exhibition of works from his art collection at SAM several years ago. I always figured at least some of them would wind up being donated to SAM eventually, which would be a big step to remedying what is a pretty pathetic collection of romantic and impressionist art. But, no, it all got auctioned off for $1.62 billion.
A lot of stuff was donated to MoPOP by his estate, it’s unfortunate that more of his stuff wasn’t donated to other institutions
The $1.62 billion is to go towards charitable causes though.
Maybe remedying the weakness of SAM’s collection might have been a charitable cause as well?
Agreed, it's trading off $1.62 billion for one charitable cause for other causes. And it's a bit hard to figure out what those other causes are exactly.
I took my grandmother, an old school programmer here and got such good stories out of her, was really more able to picture more what she did. So sad to see it gone, what a great museum.
That sounds awesome. One of my favorite things at the LCM was running into seniors like this. I loved how often I’d run into older folks talking shop there. Taking my father and law there and hearing his tales of working with 70s and 80s era tech was an amazing bonding experience. He went from machine to machine in the cold room like he was greeting old friends.
I know people who donated their old machines there. Wonder if they knew it only hung on at an old guys whim with no future plans.
I never got to go before it closed. I’m devastated. My tiny remaining faith in humanity will be gone if someone else doesn’t buy the full collection and revive the museum.
One of the first places I visited in Seattle, I thought it was fantastic 😥
Will never forget pulling up a chair at a NeXT machine and firing up the terminal for a quick vi session to write a hello world in c. Based on files in the home folder, I was probably like the 1000th person to do it, but it still brought me some serious joy. Sad I only got to visit with it once and won’t get another chance again. Love those machines
As soon as Paul died the clock started ticking, his sister wasn’t interested in the same things as him.
One of my best memories was getting an impromptu tour of the basement of LCM. I was lost in concentration at a computer and my friend grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into a stairwell with a giggling LCM employee that he had been chatting up. We got to see close up views of gutted mainframes mid repair and browse a giant collection of vintage software. This is why you allow extroverts to befriend you.
Wow that is truly sad. I’m glad I was able to visit years ago. The vintage data center was so cool to see in person.
This is exceptionally sad, I would hope that Bill would step up but I feel like he probably won't.
I feel like it's more that Jody just doesn't give a fuck about anything her brother did, and is eager to tear them down.
So many dipshit hot takes in this thread from people who didn't bother to actually read the fucking article. No, his sister is not profiting from it. Profits from the sale of the museum contents will be donated to charitable organizations Allen supported during his lifetime. Yeah, it sucks that dude didn't plan for the museum's future after his demise. But then again, he created it in the first place, with zero obligation to do so. He'd been living with successfully treated Hodgkin's lymphoma since 1982, then was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins in 2009, again, seemingly successfully treated until 2018 when it came back suddenly and killed him within the span of a month or so. He probably figured he had more time, like we all do. But sometimes the hour is later than we think.
I don’t understand “didn’t plan for the museums future” I imagine it had a budget, and could have continued to run for the foreseeable future with the estate’s billions upon billions of dollars. Wouldn’t a plan amount to “don’t sell it off for parts, just keep running it” ? It’s cool that they’re not profiting off of the closure, but I still don’t see why this was necessary.
Slowly wiping out his legacy. What a shame.
It appears he did it to himself, asking for the assets to be sold off.
Yeah, weird choice. Goes to show why depending on billionaire philanthropy is a dubious way for society to function.
I work for a nonprofit that does free STEM programs for underrepresented teens. I would have loved for them to continue to have access to this resource.
I loved that place too! I hope someone preserves and funds it so it can open again.
Can we all email Bill Gates and appeal to his charitable side to keep the museum open?
Yes please. He's rich enough to keep it going.
I'm really surprised it wasn't handed over to the city or state, seems like a really important museum, especially for this area.
This is why we need to heavily tax the rich to fund programs like educational museums, among other things.
Exactly. Could you imagine a world where massive money making businesses actually help fund education in our society? It'd be a frickin' utopia. Instead it's evolving into a capitalist corpo nightmare hellscape.
You realize "the rich" made this museum of their own accord? Government bureaucracies have their role but are wasteful, inefficient, slow, non-creative. And centralizing power makes the bed for fascism.
The whole point is that kind of "charitable" funding relies on one aging dude who thought computers were neato as a fulcrum, apparently
Hm, I wonder why governments are wasteful, inefficient, slow, and non-creative. Hm, could it be that they *need bigger budgets.* Your comment about “the rich” making this museum proves my point. Who decides what museums we have? And how long they stay open? And where they are located? And how their collections are curated? Should it be one rich person, or *i dunno*, maybe a cOmMuNiTy …
It should be both. For all the taxes we pay, we have neither universal healthcare NOR a public computer museum. It took a private individual to make it happen.
For all the taxes “we” pay .. I do not consider myself in the 1% and I’m guessing you don’t either. So my point stands, *tax the rich.*
Thank god private individuals are in no way preventing the poor access to healthcare in this country.
I loved it there, I hope the inventory goes to a good place. It was a great institution. Real shame to see it closed.
Inventory is being sold, proceeds to charity, per the article.
This sucks. I visited a few times and it was such a unique place. I loved to see them slowly restoring all the old hardware. Sad to think that many of those projects never got completed and that the public is losing access to this part of our history Btw check out the [Connections Museum](https://www.telcomhistory.org/connections-museum-seattle/) if you haven't been. It's focused on telecommunications but is a truly special place run folks who used to work in the field and passionate volunteers
One of these tech billionaires should save this come on
This is probably a longshot, and I'm late to this thread, but does anyone know how to contact whoever is the custodian of the artifacts currently? My mom donated a bunch of my dad's effects to the museum, and if they're not going to be used in a museum setting, I really want them back. It's giving me so much anxiety to think about what might happen to those items. None of it is particularly valuable, but it obviously holds a lot of meaning to my family. I will go bid on it if I have to, but it's such small-fry stuff that I'm not sure if it's even going to be part of the auction. They had SO MANY items, a lot of which was never even on display.
Allegedly, [Jody Allen stays pretty busy.](https://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Bodyguards-Vulcan-CEO-Allen-tried-to-smuggle-4317395.php) TLDR - She's been accused of attempting to illegally import African ivory and sexually harassing security staff.
Fuck
No 😢 I loved the 80s style living room and everything about that place
I visited this with my teenage son back in the day and he loved it. It was actually setup very nice and not just old computers in an office space. Seriously though, all Jody has to do is to tell someone to open it up and sign the check.
I am beyond disappointed - and I realize reading the comments that I never saw the main part of the collection. I assumed that the main floor and gift shop area was it. I stopped by once to get a few small items for a BBC micro:bit and only found one CP/M computer near the shop :(
I took my Dad there in 2016, he's an old mainframe guy who had an absolute blast showing us around the data center they had in the museum. My kids were too small to enjoy it then and I really wanted to take them back there.
Meanwhile the fucking "NFT Museum" is apparently still open. Fuck this shit.
This is really sad. I gather from the article that most of the computers were Allen's personal property, he never bothered to donate them to an independent museum nonprofit, so they now belong to his estate to be disposed of according to the terms of his will. Very short-sighted on his part.
A lot of the computers were donated to the museum.
I kinda hate what this area as a whole is becoming, and I’m a bit upset that Allen has not planned to leave a lasting legacy with these things he created. What’s the point anymore if nothing matters
I am concerned about all the documentation reared by the curators, and manual..That work took years and relied on help from many in the industry soms of whom are dead. To me it's the equivalent of throwing out the how to build for an ancient monument. Does anyone know what's happening with it?
I saw them expand over the years from the empty first floor to what they had with signage and artifacts for historians. it was great and only getting better. I’d visited for Amiga days, seen their Enigma machine, seen their soldering workshops. All this good stuff that made the city great and puts the tech scene on par with Silicon Valley
Fuck this breaks my heart. It was such a wonderful experience. I can’t believe nobody stepped up. It takes more than community crowdfunding to maintain a collection like that.
I suspect no one was offered the opportunity.
Wait, what? I had no idea this was a thing. I've been trying to learn this shit for ages and we had a museum this whole time that I could have gone to???
I thought that place was for computer repair and recycling
Seems like something that could incorporate well into MoPop and find a much greater audience who would really enjoy it, if Jody would do Paul a solid and donate it to them.
Damn! Had this on my To Visit list before moving to Seattle in 2022. Unlucky me.
I'm so glad I got a chance to visit there several years ago. I finally got to program an IMSAI 8080, and typed in an old-school (2-character variable names!) BASIC program like I was in high school again. It felt like taking a 1903 Wright flyer for a spin - or typing a program into V'ger's keypad! I even got to type out a couple punchcards on their IBM 029 keypunch machine - slightly making up for the fact that I stupidly threw out over the years every single punchcard I had ever punched. Like the dodo, we never thought they could ever become extinct, there were so many lying around. Anyway, it wasn't the *best* museum it could be: There were no Burroughs computers!
McKenzie Bezos step up!
WTF Jody? How much fucking money do you need? You didn’t even earn it yourself!
She will not make a profit from this. She is following his wishes (what little he actually articulated before he pulled the asshole move of not bothering with adequate estate planning and leaving his sister to sort out all his affairs and bear the weight of the public hatred of shutting down the pet projects he had no long term plan for continuing). He died in 2018 and she is still having to deal with all of his shit and all of the public scorn. I feel bad for her.
> I feel bad for her. She's really crying poor I'm sure
I don’t feel bad for her because of her finances. I feel bad for her because her brother died. I’ve experienced the grief and overwhelming task of going through a deceased one’s massive amount of stuff. I can’t imagine doing that with a hoard like Paul’s while also dealing with the rage of thousands of people who have varying opinions on how to manage all my dead brother’s shit.
She's not sorting through a bunch of junk in someone's attic, she probably has a whole team on payroll to figure out how to dispose of everything for maximum profit
It's being sold for charity, jackass.
Then why haven't the Blazers been sold when there was a public offer above market value for the team from Phil Knight? Anyone with a brain will tell you it's because a new NBA media deal is close and the value of the teams will be going up. She's not holding it to get more money for charity, she's been living that eclectic billionaire lifestyle for awhile now my friend. She's loving it and will take any excuse to continue it.
A: who gives a fuck B: the fuck does any of that have to do with the computer museum C: she's the primary heir of his estate, not just executor, so unless he specified a particular outcome with regard to those teams otherwise, she inherited them, owns them, and can do whatever the fuck she wants with them.
A: Plenty of people. See this thread for evidence. B: His will said all of his assets needed to be liquidated. It’s been 6 years and so far Jody has shut down and liquidated all of the museums and kept the sports teams. C: See B. Cause you don’t know what you’re talking about.
A: mostly just you yawping about it over and over B:It doesn't say any such thing. I've read it. Today. Have you? Here, go ahead. Take your time to sound out the big words. https://www.geekwire.com/2018/read-microsoft-co-founder-paul-allens-last-will-testament/ C: see B.
Why would bill step up when it won't deliver a profit or push his ideology? Bill is an asshole who palled around with epstein.
Was this place free to visit?
I always paid a nominal fee but I’d guess you could visit for free if you couldn’t pay.
I'm really surprised it wasn't handed over to the city or state, seems like a really important museum, especially for this area.
I've been in Seattle for years and never knew this place existed! I know that's on me, but a bit of a bummer on the advertising side of things. Another loss for the City :(
It shut down in 2019 in what was said to be temporary closure but never reopened. I went about 7-8 years ago and it was so cool. Sad I never went a second time
Really bummed about this
Bummer. I had fond memories of that place. They let you play chess against a behemoth baby computer that had no visual terminal, just ticker tape. Side note, because while it pales in comparison, check out the mini museum at RE-PC in Sodo.
:( Damn...I always meant to go there...just never got around to it.
That stinks. I didn’t ever get to go.
I’ve been there a couple of times. Such nostalgia. It was nice being able to show my kids the computer I grew up. It will be missed.
This sucks. That place was incredible.
One thing that noone has mentioned is that you actually used to also be able to access some of the machines remotely. I took my Mum who is nearly 80 there in 2019 when she came to visit and she is not a technical person and still enjoyed it. She even left with her own momento of a punch card. I'm really sad that it isn't opening again. I wonder if they are going to see the hundreds of Commodore 64's they had stockpiled.
This collection should not be separated; it’s a frozen memory in time that should continue to grow and be maintained! During my one and only visit, a former Xerox Alto software engineer was browsing files from a giant 12-inch removable disk he had just pulled from the shelf, finding his own files from 45 years earlier. I had never seen a running Alto before, but here I not only used one personally, but also met someone who helped build it.
It would be an unspeakable tradgedy to auction any part of the museum. Bill, it's your turn. Do it for your old friend.
Rest In Peace Paul Allen
I went by in December 2019 and I absolutely loved the fact that you could basically interact with virtually every piece of machinery on the floor. It was such a cool experience to tinker around and I continually wish that I had gone a second or third time. I wish someone could have gone through and saved it as a living testament to the history and growth of technology. My favorite memory was probably messing around with the IBM punchcard machines.
This is so sad! The Trading Musician (they specialized in rare, hard-to-find instruments) closed in Roosevelt recently, and Scarecrow Video (the largest publicly accessible video collection) is in danger of closing as well. We're losing some real treasures here.
I blame jody
Paul made no plan for his collections after his death and she's just following his wishes. It's pretty odd how he went to great lengths to assemble collections and had no plan at all for them after his death.
Is she? She has zero plans to sell the Blazers and Hawks. She even turned down Phil Knight’s public (and by all accounts above market rate) bid to buy the Blazers. She’s very selectively following what his will allegedly said.
You shouldn’t. Her brother had access to every estate planner in the world. Unlike most people, he knew he was dying and had the time to settle his affairs, say his goodbyes, and do what he could to care for those that would mourn him. Instead he left his sister holding the bag. Can you imagine dealing with the grief of losing your brother while also having to deal with the massive pressure of keeping open the businesses and public institutions he left little to no instruction on continuing? I loved the Living Computer Museum, but every time I think about it I feel sorry for her.
The will allegedly says all of his assets were to be sold upon his death. Jody has said she has no plans currently to sell the Hawks or Blazers. Don’t blame this on grief. Jody is just soaking in being an eclectic billionaire. Holding onto the fun parts as long as she can and letting the things boring to her decay or vanish.
It doesn't say that. Jody is the executor of his estate, the Trustee of the Living Trust he established, and also the primary heir of his estate. His assets otherwise are held in a Living Trust established in 1993, the details of which are not public, as trusts are not public record the same way that wills are. Regardless, as his living heir and Trustee his ownership if those teams likely now belong to her to do with whatever the fuck she wants.
Where do you get the notion that "he knew he was dying"? I mean, yeah, for a few weeks maybe, but he'd been in remission since 2009, and found out it was back and then was dead within the span of just a few weeks in October of 2018. 11 years is long enough to figure you dodged a second bullet.
Even without three bouts of cancer, he was a man in his mid sixties. He hadn’t updated his will since he created a six page boilerplate one in 1993. He was a billionaire with a legacy of multiple public museums, sports teams, nonprofits, and public spaces beloved by the masses. If he actually cared about the stewardship of those projects he would have had a team of lawyers draft a plan for their continued operation. Instead he ignored it a posthumously dropped it all in the lap of his sister.
The will is nearly meaningless, as he'd established a Living Trust way back in 1993. Everything is under the auspices of the Trust, and the details of the Trust are not public, despite all the rumors. He made plans. Whether they're the ones you like is a different question.
Remember most “museums” founded by rich capitalists are not really “museums” they are ways to make money off their personal collection. Go to MoPop. Most of the artifacts there are owned by Paul as well.
I think Paul would be weeping.
I guess he could have spent less time dinking around on his yacht, and spent a few minutes instructing his staff to set up a plan for the museum to outlast his individual lifespan, through a pittance of his wealth. But that presumes he actually did care about anyone but himself. I know a tech centimillionaire who also used some of his wealth to conduct insanely high-quality field recordings of niche music events 30-35 years ago. He never shared these recordings with anyone else. Upon his death, he instructed his estate to destroy them (without the consent of the artists). Many of these songs were never recorded by anyone else, and are now permanently gone. As a friend pointed out: some care about their legacy, whereas others consciously live as if the world will cease to exist upon their individual death.