Yesterday @Revaldinho and I took a trip to Wroughton, near Swindon, for a guided tour of the Science Museum’s object store. Lots of vehicles, instruments, equipment, even furniture, but also many computer-related objects.
Here’s my subset album for computers, terminals, calculators, electronic toys…
Many packed shelves, everything with a barcode on a ribbon:
We were reminded several times that it’s not a museum - the objects are there for storage and possible conservation, but not set up for display, so very few labels and not good lighting. It’s a huge space! Previously in WWII-era hangars (it’s on an old airfield) it’s now in the Stephen Hawking building, which is purpose built.
Science and Innovation Park, Wroughton, Swindon
On an old RAF airfield, a no-frills metal barn has been built to house the reserve collections of the London museum and its associates, with 300,000 objects ranging from a 1960s nuclear missile to Stephen Hawking’s voice synthesiser
Oh gosh, that brought back so many memories. I wasn’t quite 1/10th scale in 1974, but five year old me remembers charging around the ICL 1900 installation at my dad’s office. The big greyish/blusih boxes (especially your pictures of a couple up in the racks) brought back the feels …
How long did a data center or lab or school keep that big iron around?
Here in Canada, the replaced a IBM 1130 (punch cards), with a VAX around 1982. I could get free
time to use the IBM but not the VAX. The IBM 1130 seemed to be a very friendly to use computer.
with the cards and printer. The VAX was great GOD, only seen but the divine people, not common bloke
or heaven help a poor student..
That was when Computer Science was real course,not How to use a Word Processor under MSDOS,
They got rid of the 1900 almost as soon as the ICL 2900 series came out. As a UK government-owned entity, my dad’s place of work (Clyde Port: ran most of the ports on the River Clyde, including Govan and Port Glasgow) had to buy ICL to keep the UK computer industry growing
How did you arrange a visit? The ICL scale model really caught my eye.
The Computer History Museum here in Mt. View has quite a collection of scale models, from Univacs to Crays, many IBM, etc. I’ve been pushing to get a popup display of them, but it won’t happen for a while.
There’s a limited quota of timed tickets, so I first signed up to a mail list, then waited for the pre-announcement, and then hovered over the keyboard as the tickets were released. By the time I got there, a few dates had remaining availability, but fewer dates had a pair of tickets left. Long story short, I bought the tickets in late June, for a date in early October.
Sign up here:
From an earlier email:
In a fortnight’s time on Thursday 26 June at 11.00, we’ll be releasing more than 1,400 tickets for Public Guided Tours. These tours will take place in August, September and October.
Edit: if you have very specific interests, you can register as an independent researcher and book time with specific items from the collection, to study and photograph. You do need to sign something.
That is nice as the scale model photo has zoom so one can see every thing.
Why the need for a big clock tower? I guess the card punches are the far right.
Ben.
… or perhaps something to do with cables running from the raised floor. Might even be part of a ventilation system.
The 1900 series was probably old enough that hand-written logbooks with job times might still be expected at some installations. So a clock visible from the operator console might be a required feature.
I remember my dad mentioning that a navy installation he consulted with PA for had a scrupulously-kept paper logbook. This would have been somewhere between 1968 and 1973.
