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Old Computers Resurrected As Instruments At Bletchley Park

Posted by timothy on from the brunsviga-adding-machine-in-da-house dept.

arcticstoat writes with a snippet from bit-tech.com; musician Matthew Applegate "plans on assembling a virtual orchestra of 20 retired relics of computing at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. The choice of venue will even allow Applegate to feature the infamous Colossus Mark 2 computer in the event, which was used for code-breaking in World War II and was recently reconstructed at Bletchley Park in 2007. ... A wide selection of computing fossils be used in Applegate's final musical presentation, which is called 'Obsolete?' This includes the Elliot 803 (a 1960s machine with 4KB of memory), the aforementioned Colossus Mark 2, a Bunsviga adding machine (pictured) and a punch card machine. As well as this, there are also some machines that will look nostalgically familiar to kids who grew up with the home computer generation, including a BBC Micro, an Atari 800XL, a Dragon 32 and an Amstrad CPC464." The article's list of the members of this "orchestra" makes an interesting checklist of computer hardware history.

3 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. Huh? by ScrewMaster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As well as this, there are also some machines that will look nostalgically familiar to kids who grew up with the home computer generation, including a BBC Micro, an Atari 800XL, a Dragon 32 and an Amstrad CPC464.

    What, no Apple ][?

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    1. Re:Huh? by lokedhs · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The Apple II was never big in Europe. The above-mentioned machines were much bigger back then. In fact, even though I was raised with computers during that time, I have never actually seen an Apple II in real life. The others, however, are very familiar to me.

    2. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The Apple II was never big in Europe. The above-mentioned machines were much bigger back then. In fact, even though I was raised with computers during that time, I have never actually seen an Apple II in real life. The others, however, are very familiar to me.

      Oh, I understand that, but the Apple ][ predates most of the others and is worthy of an historical footnote. Besides, if they want to limit this to European brands, they should remove the Atari from the list as well.