The Independent Republic of Colin Butler

View Original

UK National Computer Museum

Located within the Bletchley Park complex in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, is the UK National Computer Museum.

Bletchley Park is famed for the communication work during World War 2, with the National Computer Museum holding its own claim to fame, assisting the Allies in communication decrypting of Allied Communications.

Included in the price of admission (£7.50 for adults, concessions £5 - August 2017) is a twenty-minute informative talk detailing the creation of the Tunny Machine and the Colossus Computer, used to decrypt and decode German messages.

The Museum has recreated the machines, demonstrating the physical size of first programmable computers used to aid the war effort.

Other sections promote Women in Computing, Air Traffic Control, early mainframes, and Classroom learning.

A personal favourite was the many exhibits of computers and devices from the past, remembering devices I owned and machines I pinned for but never was lucky enough to own.

I remember booking a slot in the local library to use one of this Amstrad CPC464

The machine Stsve Jobs built and named after his daughter - Lisa

For all my Anti-Apple bias, one of my first machines was an Apple IIe (here with an Apple 3 Monitor

My Anti-Apple Bias was tested when my Dad told me he wanted an Apple Macintsh SE when they were released

The BBC Micro sent a shiver down my spine. I heard so much about how this machine did so much for computer literacy in schools - I never got it.

The Next - the machine Steve Jobs developed when he left Apple

The UK National Computer Museum is well worth a visit for an hour or two, either as part of the general Bletchey Park visit or as a targeted trip down memory lane.