Sponsor enables greater access to one of world’s top computer museums
1 July 2010
The National Museum of Computing is extending its opening times and offering guided tours with the help of funding from its first Foundation Sponsor InsightSoftware.com, business process optimization software provider.
The tours, to be called The Insightsoftware.com Tours, will be available on two days a week in addition to the Museum’s regular opening times of Thursday and Saturday afternoons. The Museum is also open to groups at other times by prior arrangement.
Kevin Murrell, a trustee and director of TNMOC said: “In becoming TNMOC’s first Foundation Sponsor, InsightSoftware.com is helping us to fulfil our potential. It is so frustrating having world-class exhibits, but not having the resources to give more access to them. The first piloted guided tours have been full and are whetting visitors’ appetites for the full interactive experience available during our Thursday and Saturday opening times.
“We are extremely grateful to InsightSoftware.com for becoming a Foundation Sponsor and hope that its involvement will encourage other companies to help TNMOC meet its huge educational potential. Since officially opening just over two years ago, the Museum has, thanks to the hard work of many volunteers, become one of the top three computer museums in the world. Funding is needed to secure its future and to enable further developments. InsightSoftware.com has taken an inspirational lead.”
Paul Sutton, Managing Director EMEA at InsightSoftware.com stated: “As a successful software company we know how important the development of the computer industry has been to businesses worldwide and we are very pleased to offer our support to such a worthy cause.”
The Insightsoftware.com Tours, which will trace the history of computing from 1945 to the present day, start at 2.15pm on Tuesdays and Fridays and are free to the first 15 Bletchley Park visitors who sign up on the day. Led by highly experienced and trained volunteers, the tours take in the rebuild of the world’s first modern computer, Colossus, the ongoing restoration of the 1950s Harwell-WITCH computer, the mainframes of the 1960s-1980s, the development of microcomputers and handhelds from the 1980s to the present, an explanation of the technology of the internet in the NPL gallery – and a lot more between.
For just £12,500 a year for three years, a select group of companies can help mark the development of our computing heritage and secure the future of TNMOC by becoming Foundation Sponsors.
Notes To Editors
About InsightSoftware.com
InsightSoftware.com optimizes business processes for Oracle E-Business Suite and JD Edwards, empowering end users with access to live information. The Insight software solution improves productivity for ad hoc requests, reporting, analysis, audit and reconciliation needs. Insight’s enterprise-wide solution for JD Edwards includes modules for: Financials, Supply Chain Management, Project and Asset Management and Human Capital Management. InsightSoftware.com is a global software provider and has customers throughout North America, Europe and Australia. For further information, please call: USA: 1-888-467-1448, UK: +44 (0)845-467-4448, AUS: +61 (0) 2-8216-0810, or visit www.InsightSoftware.com .
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 hosted 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.
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