Bletchley Park

    A country house and grounds some 50 miles
   North of London, England, where highly secret work deciphering
   intercepted German military radio messages was carried out
   during World War Two.  Thousands of people were working there
   at the end of the war, including a number of early computer
   pioneers such as Alan Turing.

   The nature and scale of the work has only emerged recently,
   with total secrecy having been observed by all the people
   involved.  Throughout the war, Bletchley Park produced highly
   important strategic and tactical intelligence used by the
   Allies, (Churchill's "golden eggs"), and it has been claimed
   that the war in Europe was probably shortened by two years as
   a result.

   An exhibition of wartime code-breaking memorabilia, including
   an entire working Colossus, restored by Tony Sale, can be
   seen at Bletchley Park on alternate weekends.

   The Computer Conservation Society (CCS), a specialist group
   of the British Computer Society runs a museum on the site
   that includes a working Elliot mainframe computer and many
   early minicomputers and microcomputers.  The CCS hope to
   have substantial facilities for storage and restoration of old
   artifacts, as well as archive, library and research
   facilities.

   Telephone: Bletchley Park Trust office +44 (908) 640 404
   (office hours and open weekends).

   (1998-12-18)