Campaign Saves Unique Turing Archive

99luftballon writes "A near-complete collection of Alan Turing's offprints have been bought for Bletchley Park following an online campaign and funds from Google and the UK government. They will go on display in the next few months. From the article: 'The collection contains offprints of 15 of Turing's 18 published papers assembled by his friend and colleague Max Newman. It includes Turing's first published paper, as well as his initial plans for computing and artificial intelligence.'"

Comments

Good on Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Every once in a while I notice that Google hasn't taken their eye off the ball. They have achieved status as some of the most respected players in the industry. Why? Because they actually care a bit about its history. Most everyone else is solely interested in the last quarter, and whether the shareholders will be pleased. M$ couldn't give the slightest sniff about Turing, same with IBM, HP, Oracle, and most of the rest. I like making money, but not necessarily to the exclusion of all else. I can't say the same about those I've mentioned. The hard-core business types will offer "well, there is nothing without money", and that is what separates the pioneers in any industry, the innovators in any industry, and the captains in any industry, from the outsourced, half-baked, half-cooked, humdrum, rest.

Re:Good on Google

[Enter the Shoggoth]

Every once in a while I notice that Google hasn't taken their eye off the ball. They have achieved status as some of the most respected players in the industry. Why? Because they actually care a bit about its history. Most everyone else is solely interested in the last quarter, and whether the shareholders will be pleased. M$ couldn't give the slightest sniff about Turing, same with IBM, HP, Oracle, and most of the rest. I like making money, but not necessarily to the exclusion of all else. I can't say the same about those I've mentioned. The hard-core business types will offer "well, there is nothing without money", and that is what separates the pioneers in any industry, the innovators in any industry, and the captains in any industry, from the outsourced, half-baked, half-cooked, humdrum, rest.

Possibly true - but I'd argue that's because Sergey and Larry still run Google. I strongly suspect that if Bill Hewlett and David Packard were still alive they would probably care, (leisure suit) Larry Ellison might also care although since he hasn't given any money in this case who can say for sure, hell even Bill Gates might care but he's no longer running the show and I'm pretty sure the Ballmer monkey wouldn't care.

In short once Sergey and Larry retire I doubt Google will give a flying monkey's arse either.