Sign in / up

back to article Virtual Nazi-code-cracking Colossus in fundraising appeal

The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) has turned to a tried-and-tested fundraising method to establish a home for the rebuilt Colossus computer at Bletchley Park. Individuals and firms are invited to buy up pixels of an online picture of the wartime code-breaking machine - at 10 pence per dot with a minimum spend of £10 - …

COMMENTS

House rules Send corrections
This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. James 93
    Go

    Is El Reg buying?

    4 0
    1. TeeCee Gold badge
      Reply Icon
      Unhappy

      Damn. Now you've done it. Forcing vulture towers to make a quiddage choice of historical computers or celebutard spaceplanes? That's a really dirty trick to pull.......

      0 0
    2. Lee Dowling Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Dunno, but I just put a tenner on.

      My entire career, and favourite hobby, exists only because of the work those people did. In a way, you can also say that they are the reason I don't speak German today, except in polite and peaceful concourse with our European neighbours.

      This is my (small, but all I can really spare) birthday present for Turing (100 on the 23rd of June this year!), my thank you for everyone's hard work (good old fashioned elbow-grease and brain-power - which may well have saved dozens of lives of ordinary people I actually *knew* / still know), my contribution to Bletchey Park's restoration, and my hope that interest in this subject provides the schools I work for with future incentive to teach proper computing once again.

      That's a lot for a tenner to say.

      9 0
      1. AbortRetryFail
        Reply Icon
        Thumb Up

        @Lee Dowling

        Bravo, sir! I think I may have to do likewise as I found myself nodding at everything you've written.

        2 0
        1. Miffo
          Reply Icon

          You could even pop along and visit - that'll help their fund raising a little and could be fun. I've been once and enjoyed seeing the old 80's home computers (sorry - a bit low brow!).

          1 0
          1. PeterO
            Reply Icon

            If you "pop along" now you won't be able to see Colossus as it is enclosed in a protective box while the building work goes on around it. The rest of TNMOC is open as normal.

            1 0
      2. Terry Barnes
        Reply Icon

        Pedant alert - but Turing had no involvement with Colossus.

        Is still worth a tenner of anyone's money however!

        0 0
  2. C-N
    Trollface

    ahem...

    Can it run Crysis?

    0 0
    1. Lee Dowling Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Nah, but there's probably already a Linux port in the making. :-)

      1 0
  3. Kubla Cant
    Thumb Up

    Count me in

    I've got to contribute to this, as my Mum worked at Bletchley Park during the war.

    Sadly, by the time it was permissible to tell us about it, she couldn't really remember much of it. It didn't sound like it involved Colossus. Even if it did, I don't suppose a 21-year-old former Classics student would have made a big technical contribution.

    2 0
  4. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Holmes

    "encrypted messages between Hitler and his generals"

    These would not have been very interesting.

    "Falling back will be handled as treason. Bomb! bomb! bomb! We are winning! Nein! Nein! Nein!"

    etc. etc. etc. Much like any politician's blather today.

    0 2
  5. AndrueC Silver badge
    Pint

    £10 to put the image of a budgies head in front of thousands of people. How can I resist?

    1 0
  6. Snar
    Thumb Down

    Why should TNMOC pay rent?

    It really riles me that TNMOC (which generates significant foot-fall for BP) is charged rent and will be charging an entrance fee. Without the Colossus, Bombes et all, would Bletchley Park be such an attraction?

    Many visitors go to see the tech of BP and if TNMOC was not there, how many would go? Why would anyone spend a tenner to look around the rest of the site? BP need to realise that if they financially strangle the goose that laid the golden egg, the site would no longer have a crowd-pulling attraction

    Sadly I guess that in the case of management of BP, the idiots have taken over the asylum.

    ... -.-

    0 1
This topic is closed for new posts.