Dekatrons emerge sunny side up with Eggheads

A team from The National Museum of Computing beat the Eggheads on BBC 2’s popular quiz programme this week and won £4,000 for the Museum.

The Harwell and the Dekatrons team (named after the 1951 Harwell Dekatron, the world’s oldest working digital computer, now restored and working at the Museum) cracked a little at the beginning, but came through strongly at the end to scramble the Eggheads.

Dekatrons team captain, Andrew Herbert said: “We were up against arguably the best all-round quiz team in the country, so we had to select our opponent in the head-to-head section very quickly. We did our research and it paid off. It was fascinating watching the Eggheads team at work: if they didn’t know a particular topic particularly well, they would work around the question from all sorts of angles to try to guess the correct answer. We can learn a lot from that strategy!

“Three minutes after the programme had aired, a delighted 90-year-old Colossus veteran emailed the Museum to congratulate us. Now, that’s fast! I think she should be on our next team!”

The full Harwell and the Dekatrons team was Colin Eby, Andrew Herbert, Phil Mainwaring, Andy Taylor, John Wilson and Matt Yeomans (reserve).

The £4,000 prize money will be used to support day-to-day Museum operations. Matching funds are welcomed!