----- Original Message -----
From: "Randall" <tr3driver@comcast.net>
Cc: "Triumph list" <triumphs@autox.team.net>
Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2005 12:04 AM
Subject: RE: BTDT (was : Making Metal Brake Lines) (no LBC content)
>> well if you guys thing esoteric car stuff is strange wait till you go to
>> the Computer History Museum in Moutain View ( San Jose) Calif.
>
> Thanks, Mike, I'll definitely add it to my list of destinations.
>
> Isn't there a museum near Chicago that has a portion of ENIAC still
> operating ?
> Might make a good side trip from Rockford this year ...
>
> Randall
>
I'm not sure about the Chicago museum (but I'll do some research for you,
Randall), but one of my more memorable visits in the last year was to
Bletchley Park, in England, the former site of the Government Code and
Cipher School, the official name of the group set up to break the Enigma
code. It is now a museum
(http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/page.cfm?pageid=231) devoted to the
codebreakers, run by volunteers with little or no government money, and they
have a fine collection of early computers (although not well organized),
with the jewel in the crown being a working copy of the Collossus, one of
the first, if not the first, digital computers. Collossus was designed and
built to help break the Lorenz code, a code even more complex than Enigma.
You can stand in the courtyard outside Alan Turing's small cottage and just
breath in the ambience. The "huts" are in disrepair but some are in the
process of being renovated. A great place to visit if you are interested in
computers, codes, Enigma, Turing or WWII (the big one, as Archie Bunker used
to say). And, they have a small collection of old English vehicles.
Michael Marr
1960TR3A
Naperville, IL
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