We preserve how people connected.

MOCCI is an emerging museum dedicated to communication infrastructure as living cultural inheritance—not merely objects to observe, but systems to encounter, understand, and use.

Current work

Building the institutional foundation and inaugural Dial-up ISP exhibit.

See our founding status

00 / Thesis

“Communication infrastructure is more than equipment. It is the enduring relationship between people, systems, and the knowledge that connects them.”

Telegraph followed rail. Telephone inherited telegraph. Modems made the telephone network carry a new kind of conversation. Culture and its means of transmission cannot be separated.

We preserve continuity.

01 / About

History you can enter.

Most technology collections begin at the endpoint: the telephone, the terminal, the computer. MOCCI begins with the connective tissue that made those objects matter.

We preserve hardware, software, standards, documents, practices, oral histories, and the physical and institutional systems that allowed people to reach one another across distance and time.

Our exhibits favor working systems and honest constraints. A visitor should be able to hear the handshake, feel the wait, understand the trade, and recognize the people whose care kept the network alive.

02 / Exhibits

First connections.

Our initial program explores the public networks and independent communities that carried computing into everyday life.

01In development

The Dial-up ISP

A working regional Internet service provider, reconstructed as infrastructure rather than scenery: telephony, modem banks, routing, authentication, services, and the ritual of connecting.

02Research phase

BBS culture

Independent systems, shared networks, door games, message bases, and the communities that learned to connect before the commercial web made connection feel effortless.

03Collection scope

The public network

The exchanges, operators, standards, rights-of-way, instruments, and accumulated labor that made a voice—or a modem—appear at the other end of a line.

03 / People

A community of contribution

To those whose work connected the world.

Operators, installers, maintainers, engineers, manufacturers, educators, regulators, users, and countless unnamed hands: communication infrastructure is a collective achievement. Its people and their stories are part of the collection.

04 / Principles

How we intend to work.

Working history

The systems should function. Waiting, dialing, negotiating, failing, and trying again are part of what the technology meant.

Context before spectacle

No artifact is interpreted in isolation. Equipment belongs to a larger story of people, knowledge, institutions, and use.

Access by many paths

Authenticity should invite participation, not become a gate. Historical and modern on-ramps can meet within the same experience.

Stewardship over ownership

What is entrusted to the museum is held for those who come after us. Provenance, uncertainty, and restoration decisions remain part of the record.

05 / Status

An institution in formation.

MOCCI is currently in its founding phase. We are establishing the museum’s mission, governance, collections standards, technical practice, and inaugural exhibits.

Now Institutional framework and public foundation
Next Working Dial-up ISP and portable demonstrations
Ongoing Research, provenance, restoration, and oral history

06 / Disclosure

Use of artificial intelligence.

MOCCI uses artificial-intelligence tools in portions of its research workflow, drafting, software development, and administrative planning.

These tools assist the work; they do not determine the museum’s mission, exercise curatorial authority, or replace evidence and accountable human judgment.

Material produced with AI assistance is reviewed and revised by a responsible human contributor. Historical claims are expected to rest on identifiable sources rather than AI output. Where the nature or extent of assistance is materially relevant, MOCCI documents it.

MOCCI uses artificial intelligence as a force multiplier where human capacity is unavailable, never as evidence that human expertise, labor, or lived experience is unnecessary. We remain accountable for its use, disclose it plainly, and seek qualified human participation whenever resources permit.

The founder remains responsible for the decisions, language, and systems published under MOCCI’s name.

07 / Connect

Help us remember the network.

Did you build, operate, maintain, document, regulate, or depend on communication infrastructure? MOCCI welcomes stories, documentation, expertise, and conversation as the institution takes shape.

hello@mocci.museum

Top