Yandex Museum is a place that houses exhibits and knowledge about computer technology from different eras, such legends as Felix arithmometer, first iMac, Dendy game console, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Vectrex and others. All of them are on, so each visitor can try the devices.
The first Museum opened in Moscow in 2018, the second one – in St. Petersburg in 2020.
Specifically for the Museum illustrations were created, showing the exhibits and the atmosphere of this amazing place.
The center of composition is taken by a seemingly ordinary system unit. But in fact, this is an existing techno-relic — the First Yandex Server:
Today Yandex is a transnational company in the information technology industry. It owns an Internet search engine of the same name, an Internet portal and web services in several countries.
Back in 1997, everything was just getting started. It was these computer parts that made it possible to develop and evolve the Yandex search engine, so that it became as it is now. Therefore, in honor of the First Yandex Server, an illustration was created to celebrate the beauty of its components:
Pentium II processor with a clock speed of 266 MHz and 384 MB RAM. Once upon a time, the FreeBSD operating system was running on this computer along with a search engine. Now the computer runs with the Windows 3.1 floppy disk. In the museum, you can run a retro search called "Bible Search" — a program on which the Yandex co-founder Ilya Segalovich was trying out the inverted indexing mechanism.
The illustration is created with love for each detail and mark:
Illustrations are issued in the form of posters, postcards and T-shirt prints.
The other major exhibit at the museum is Felix-M arithmometer. A popular calculating machine from the end of the last century. Unlike today's electronic calculators, in order to count on it, you had not only to take a course of study but also count perfectly in your mind.
The old but tough. The iron Felix.
The backbone of the arithmometer is the pinwheel that engineer Willgodt Theophil Odhner developed in the 1870s:
Everything can be found in the Yandex Museum.
BUT WAIT. THERE IS MORE!
There is a special ultra-rare author's illustration packed with characters having a great time among the exhibits! Check this out:
What a great company:
Hope you like it!
Special thanks goes to Alex Luri, Natalia Novikova, Oleg Senin, Alexander Shmelev & Anastasia Kondratieva for information assistance and support in creating the project.
