If the boop-eeeEEEeeee-kshhhhhhh of dial-up internet brings a tear to your eye, Alamo City has something to download. The San Antonio Museum of Science and Technology (SAMSAT) has opened Techtopia Museum, a new space showcasing late founder David Monroe’s trove of historical gadgets.

The exhibits, housed at Port San Antonio (5035 SW 36th St.), are mostly focused on everyday IT and communications objects like rotary telephones, punch-card machines, and early personal computers. Younger viewers will get a taste of what childhood was like before Cocomelon.

Guests can make a Datapoint video call, see their voice as a waveform, or bat around a pixel while playing the first video game consoles. But the technology dates well past the Reagan Era. Mathematically inclined patrons are able to try their hand calculating with Napier’s bones — a 1617 device invented to simplify complex arithmetic.

It’s not all home products. A moon mission display explores how computers made spaceflight possible. Museumgoers can take a spin on a T-34C flight simulator, although as far as we know, there are no flight suits available for a Right Stuff photo opp.

SAMSAT has been building toward its Techtopia for more than a decade. Heeding the call of a 2014 white paper that identified San Antonio as the largest U.S. city without a technology-focused museum, the museum’s founders developed an I-10 prototype in 2015.

The organization moved to Port San Antonio with a preview center in 2017, opened an education center in 2020, and launched AREA 21, its showcase of 21st-century innovation, in 2022. In 2024, the museum served more than 36,000 total visitors, according to its annual report.

Techtopia gives a wider picture of how the world arrived at the pocket computers and smart home assistants of today. While AREA 21 buzzes with simulators, robotics, and esports, the new space honors the chunky “missing links” that made Angry Birds leaderboards possible.

Viewers will have to decide for themselves whether it was all for the betterment of society. San Antonians can tag the museum during weekend hours: noon-5 pm on Thursday and 10 am-5 pm, Fridays and Saturdays. Admission ranges from free to $18.