anyone taking a tour of The
National Museum of Computing
located on Bletchley Park.
monochrome prompt to the allure of the latest
Touchtable is traced through 1980's BBC micros,
interactive video, current laptops and the giant
Domesday Touchtable of 2011. The thought that
inevitably springs to mind is: Whatever will be next?
inspirational resource for education. Schools are
responding and last year 3,500 students aged from
eight and upwards came for tours and taster classes
in programming. Their enthusiasm is infectious with
the result that teachers often want to book their
next trip before they leave.
old machines like the rebuild of the 1944 Colossus
and the 1951 WITCH and are mesmerised by the
raw, naked and unreliable state of early pioneering
computers.
address issues of online security," explained Chris
Monk, Learning Co-ordinator at the Museum.
"I can ask a student what his or her password is
and as they start to blurt it out, I cut them short
telling them that if they give their password away
they aren't revealing just a little, but actually a huge
amount. The single error of a Nazi operator of the
Lorenz machine that enabled Tunny to be broken
and Hitler's messages to be read puts that in vivid
perspective. "
who are amazed that they can see the inner
workings of a computer and explain to students
through a working and very, very slow computer
each processing stage with flashing lights and
clattering relays."
numbers of female students who came in the
school groups, but even in the course of a little
more than one year that seems to be changing. In
January two groups from girls' schools came and
were enthralled by what is too often seen as geeky
boys' territory.
are able to stay long enough to have introductory
coding lessons in the classroom lined with BBC
micros.
hear teachers say: "The BBC got it so right." The
BBC micro is an almost perfect teaching tool.
Without any internet distractions and faced with
an unfamiliar and seemingly scary screen prompt,
it is actually very accessible and students rapidly
gain confidence as they see how quickly they can
start coding. It's great to see how creative and
adventurous they quickly become. We have an
increasing demand for take-home materials from
pupils, students and teachers alike."
feet as a pioneering museum now recognised as
being world-class. In just two and a half years it
has opened eight new galleries, each of which gives
a fascinating insight of how quickly the world of
computing has developed. The fact that this is all
presented in historic Block H, the first purpose-built
computer centre and home of Colossus, is not
lost on visitors especially young people who get a
particular buzz from that fact.
become available. The Bytes Festivals during school
holidays are an especially good time for families to
visit. The Museum is not just for historians or those
seeking nostalgia!