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Britain's classic computers: A silicon.com special
Take a look through the Bletchley Park archives

By silicon.com

Published: Thursday 02 October 2008

While Bletchley Park may be best known for housing the Enigma code-breaking machine during World War II, the former intelligence facility is still home to numerous tech treasures in the National Museum of Computing.

Hardware on display includes one of Britain's first business computers, the Elliott 803, and the PACE TR-48, one of the earliest torpedo simulators, made by Electronic Associates to simulate the firing of torpedoes underwater.

These and many other machines are part of the archives at the National Museum of Computing, which houses all manner of vintage techie kit preserved for posterity, including the BBC Micro and the ZX Spectrum.

Whether Bletchley can keep the nation's tech heritage on display indefinitely is by no means certain - the museum is suffering from "ravages of age and a lack of investment" and is seeking an injection of government funds.

Here's the best of Bletchley's classic machines in photos and videos:

Photos: Britain's first business computer

Video: The Elliott 803 in action

Photos: Early analogue torpedo simulator

Video: The PACE TR-48 missile detector

Photos: Missile detecting DEC computer

Video: How the DEC spotted covert nuclear testing

Photos: A dip into Bletchley's classic PC archive

Video: The History of British of PCs

Bletchley Park future under colossal threat

UK failing to respect computing heritage

Celebrating 60 years of computing

Bletchley Park restoration short on funds

Computing museum at risk of being thing of the past