@sozobe,
When I visited a friend in Chicago a couple times in the mid 90's we went to what I thought was called the Chicago Museum of Technology but I can't find any reference to it on the internet.
It had displays of old communication/telephone equipment and computers and also had a lot of hands-on virtual reality exhibits much like an Exploratorium. We spent an entire day there and still didn't see it all.
If I remember right, it was somewhere down near the Lake.
I also remember a lot of friendly bantering back and forth about the patches of tall weeds Chicago folks call forests.