How individuals can play a key role in conserving our computing heritage
13 April 2010
The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park today launches a membership package for individuals giving them a season ticket to the museum, free entry to the Vintage Computer Festival, online access to the museum’s private wiki and a range of other benefits and discounts.
“Since we opened, less than three years ago, we’ve realised that a high proportion of our visitors are enthusiasts interested in their computing heritage and are eager to see the further development of the museum.” said Kevin Murrell, trustee and director of TNMOC. “Many become repeat visitors, and others who live further away, want to keep in close contact with our progress. We are therefore launching this membership scheme to enable individuals to get the most out of our rapidly growing resource and to become closely involved with its success.”
Murrell continued: “Generous donations from individuals already make up more than half of the Museum’s revenue. This newly launched package will enable lots of individuals to make a modest, but very significant contribution – and to receive very tangible and valuable benefits. For just £45 per year, anyone can help us conserve our computing heritage.”
For an annual fee of £45, membership benefits will include:
• an annual season ticket to TNMOC and Bletchley Park
• free entry to Britain’s first-ever Vintage Computer Festival in June 2010
• discounts and priority booking on ticketed lectures and performances at the Vintage Computer Festival
• access to restricted areas of TNMOC website to talk to the museum’s experts in various forums and learn about the restoration projects as they happen
• TNMOC lapel pin or limited edition t-shirt
• TNMOC newsletter – hardcopy and digital
• exclusive invitations to exhibition previews and collections not yet on display
• priority access to archives and library
• discounted TNMOC hire rates
• for the first 500 members: a discount on up to one year’s subscription to PC Advisor magazine and the offer of a free Windows7 book valued at £16.
TNMOC receives no government funding and is entirely dependent on industry and individuals for its development. It recently launched a Foundation Sponsorship Programme for businesses wanting to support the museum, see http://www.tnmoc.org/36/section.aspx/128.
TNMOC, which opened in 2007, already ranks amongst the world’s top three museums dedicated to computing. The Museum offers a unique insight of seven decades of computing with working displays including a rebuild of Colossus, the world’s first digital electronic programmable computer, mainframes of the 60s and 70s, the technology of the internet, and an array of personal computers from the 1970s to the present.
About The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park
The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park, an independent charity, houses the largest collection of functional historic computers in Europe, including a rebuilt Colossus, the world’s first electronic programmable computer.
The Museum complements the Bletchley Park Trust’s story of code breaking up to the Colossus and allows visitors to follow the development of computing from the ultra-secret pioneering efforts of the 1940s through the mainframes of the 1960s and 1970s, and the rise of personal computing in the 1980s. New working exhibits are regularly unveiled and the public can already view a rebuilt and fully operational Colossus, the restoration of the Harwell / WITCH computer, and an ICL 2966, one of the workhorse mainframes computers of the 1980s, plus many of the earliest desktops of the 1980s and 1990s. The latest display is the much-talked-about Technology of the Internet gallery. In June 2010 TNMOC will host Britain’s first-ever Vintage Computer Festival.
Funders of the Museum include BCS, PGP Corporation, IBM, NPL, HP Labs, InsightSoftware.com, Black Marble, and the School of Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire.
The Museum is currently open on Thursdays and Saturdays from 1pm, and on Bank Holidays in spring and summer. Groups may visit at other times by arrangement.
For more information, see www.tnmoc.org and follow @tnmoc on Twitter.
Media Contacts
Stephen Fleming at Palam Communications
t +44 (0) 1635 299116
e sfleming@palam.co.uk