As part of my birthday celebrations this past weekend I was treated by some friends to a trip to Bletchley Park.  For anyone in the computer industry or World War 2 afficianados the name should immediately be familiar, it is the place where the German Enigma codes were broken.  This is widely agreed to have shortened the war by at least 18 months, and save countless lives.

It is also the birthplace of the modern programmable computer.  Say hello to Collossus 2:

For me as a geek it was a humbling experience.  We took the guided tour and for nearly 2 hours we saw how everything you take for granted in terms of electronics and computers can be traced back to some of the astonishing work that was done at Bletchley over 60 years ago.  Standing in front of the re-created Collossus 2, you realise exactly how much work must have gone into figuring out what was required to crack the codes being picked up by radio, then having to actually build it from scratch.  It's one thing to do this in a programming language as we do today, it's completely another to have to design and build the hardware from nothing.  For the record, Colossus 1 was running in 1943, so predates ENIAC by a couple of years.  Virtually everything about the project was destroyed, and indeed kept Top Secret until the 1970's, so the fact that a fully working reconstructed version is available at Bletchley is even more amazing.

Moving into the National Computing Museum, it was a trip down memory lane for me.  It was like being in a branch of WHSmith circa 1983.  So many memories.  I came face to face with a Commodore Vic-20, which had started me down the path to my current profession almost 30 years ago.  If it hadn't been for my Dad buying me that machine, and later a ZX Spectrum I can only wonder what I'd be doing today.  It is also weird to think that I am part of the last generation who remembers such a massive upheaval in technology - the days when you could actually fix things instead of just replacing a circuit board.  I wonder how children visiting the museum would see things - so much can be taken for granted now.  Wow, I sound old...

It is made even more poignant by the campaign to give a formal apology to Alan Turing earlier this year.  Thousands signed an online petition which encouraged Downing Street to recognise the work Turing did at Bletchley, the part he played in breaking the codes and ending the war, and to apologise for how he was treated when it was discovered he was homosexual.  Turing killed himself, and the world lost a genius.  It was a shallow gesture by the Government - Turing has no surviving relatives to receive the apology on his behalf so it was just empty words  A better tribute would be for everyone who signed the petition or supported the campaign to go to Bletchley over the next year and see what was really accomplished and how astonishing this man was.  That is the difference between true support and bandwagon-jumping.

Bletchley is in need of your support.  they have only just secured Lottery funding but many parts of the museum do not have any funding at all and rely on donations and visitors and their on-site shop to keep things running.  Its all done from the love of volunteers at the moment, but that only goes so far.  I'd urge everyone with even a passing interest in computers, or history, to take a day out and go visit.  An adult ticket is £10, and it gives you unlimited access for A WHOLE YEAR!!  For a tenner!!!  You will not be disappointed.

http://www.bletchleypark.co.uk

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