Wayne Stallwood writes:
I have just spent a lovely Sunday at Bletchley Park....It truly was a wonderful day out with plenty of exhibits (not all computer related) and a fantastic guided tour (that sadly was cut slightly short because of a seasonal downpour)
Highlights for me were seeing an almost completely operational Colossus...complete with a chat with the chap who is rebuilding it.
Tony Sale. These old guys are amazingly ingenious. For example, seeing he needed some kind of widget when re-building Colossus, Tony whipped one up on the lathe in his garage. Hands up those who can remember to use a lathe (safely).
and a small but wonderful vintage computing exhibit (the highlight of this being that you are free to play with the running machines) those two things were worth the £10 entry price alone
I visited a couple of years ago. Somewhat embarrassingly, one of the exhibits was an Icl Perq, a machine on which I did my postdoctoral research! Guaranteed to make one feel old...
On a related topic, the Science Museum has a couple of places, not normally open to the public, with interesting historical computing equipment including some old Elliot kit which probably causes a dip in the national grid when it's switched on. The Computer Conservation Society is pretty active in trying to get this stuff working in addition to the exhibits at Bletchley Park.
..Adrian