Do you ever "Authenticate" the experience?

[ral-clan]

I believe the correct term here is "historical recreation" or "historical re-enactment".

That's the term I'm looking for. It's like I can immerse myself entirely into a different era.

We usually see it in people re-enacting certain battles or wars:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_reenactment

Personally, I always enjoyed going to various Pioneer Villages; that, too, is like taking a step back in time. However, these are often "Living Museums" where I am simply an observer.

Actually, at the one where I work, you can pay to stay overnight and work in the buildings in costume (getting some training from the staff there, of course).

Well, I work at one of these, so I suppose I'm for it in a way. I often think that in the year 2300 they will probably have "20th century villages" where there will be people dressed in clothes from our time, with houses you can visit set up exactly as they were in that time, and even staff trained to use the authentic VIC-20 set up in the corner. On the other hand, they will probably have some sort of Virtual Reality or holodeck type simulation so they won't actually have to build the physical site.

I work at a 19th century village, and we often get old timers coming in who grew up on farms in the 1930s, etc. where some of the technology we show was still in use (horses, hand tools, etc.). They always get excited and want to talk about how they know how to use that stuff, or how you might not be using the tool exactly right etc.

I can just see us in the year 2060, if we are still alive, chastising some 17 year old museum summer student because the VIC-20 in the "early computing" exhibit is set up wrong, or they have some detail incorrect. It's already happening with our critiques of the retro-gaming exhibits!

[PaulQ]

Well, I work at one of these, so I suppose I'm for it in a way. I often think that in the year 2300 they will probably have "20th century villages" where there will be people dressed in clothes from our time, with houses you can visit set up exactly as they were in that time, and even staff trained to use the authentic VIC-20 set up in the corner. On the other hand, they will probably have some sort of Virtual Reality or holodeck type simulation so they won't actually have to build the physical site.

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll ever see this. The Pioneer Villages are unique in that they represent an era when our country was brand new and just being built. They also cover a very broad range of time, depicting a way of life that probably pre-dated the birth of our country. Also, since everything was simpler, it's easy to replicate things from that era.

It's similar with the medieval exhibits; again, those cover a very broad range of time.

The problem with the 20th century is that there were radical changes from one decade to the next. Changes in the houses we built, the clothes we wore, the cars we drove, and the tools we used (ie; typewriters, computers, appliances). Each decade would require its own "Village" to represent it! Then there's the comparative difficulty in replicating the technology that existed at various stages, plus the fact that there would be limited appeal. Besides contributions to culture and technology (which can be displayed in a museum), the various decades of the 1900's don't represent anything of real historical significance.

I think the best we can hope for is a museum exhibit, a diner/restaurant/shop set up to replicate that era (ie; a 50's diner, or something like Mother's Pizza replicating the 20's), and private collectors like ourselves.

[telengard]

I do this once in a while. The setup which can take me right back to 1983 is to load up Telengard on the C64 with the lights out on my green phosphor monitor. If only I could bottle that feeling.

~telengard