Museum hosts program on tech through the ages

The Museum of Regional History hosts a bit of tech talk Saturday, but for this event it’s a look at technology through the ages.

The Texarkana Museums System has organized a special, interactive exhibit, “History and Technology,” that looks at how technology has adapted, giving a hands-on feel for how older methods compare to contemporary methods. The event starts at 1 p.m.

The exhibit organizes work stations for visitors to explore, such as photography, food processing, and written language. Items from the TMS collection will illustrate changes in technology. Jamie Simmons, curator for the TMS, has been preparing the exhibit.

“Each station covers a specific topic,” Simmons said, adding, “The idea is that we’re exploring technology for that particular topic—for instance, mathematics. Being able to count predates having written language.”

But with more complicated numbers, assistance in calculation was needed. Hence, the abacus came along. “It’s a very simple item: beads on a stick,” Simmons said. Simple, yes, but it enables more com-

plex calculations, too, which people later did with an adding machine (that can even print a receipt) and then on our handy calculators.

“This was particularly useful if you were a merchant,” Simmons said of that abacus. Keeping accurate tallies of stock and how much of it was sold, of course, helped society grow economically.

The exhibit is geared to both children and adults. Both should get something from experiencing it, Simmons said. You can even make your own abacus for personal use later, should the need arise.

“We’ll provide materials for an abacus to take home,” Simmons said. Recipes for kitchen science projects will also be shared, and attendees can test ancient writing techniques.

“And another thing we wanted people to consider is … you have the digital version of the calculator but you can still find an abacus in use in just about any culture across the world. These are not things that have become obsolete in that sense. Sometimes you have technology that overlaps,” Simmons said.

Another station exhibits early forms of writing, such as ancient Sumerian writing with cuneiform. “You’ll see an example of a wax tablet that would’ve been the style of tablet that a scholar would have used when taking notes,” Simmons said. It was, in a sense, a sort of notebook, she explained.

Later, written language advanced to the parchment and quill, a typewriter and now computers.

“One nice little bookend element, I think, is using a modern digital tablet with a digital stylus, and comparing that to a wax tablet with a wooden stylus. If you think about it, the concept’s the same,” Simmons said.

Activities are planned for the first Saturday of each month at the MoRH. In September, the event focuses on creative writing.

Among several other upcoming activities for the TMS is a bobbin lace workshop at the Ace of Clubs House on Aug. 19.

(Admission: $5 for non-members, free for TMS members. More info: 903-7934831 or TexarkanaMuseums.org.)