World scavenger hunt descends on Bytes

The Bytes festivals at The National Museum of Computing has had a flurry of strange requests from across the globe. Self-confessed scavengers have wanted to perform an obscure but simple calculation on any pre-1970 computer.

With the world’s largest collection of working pre-1970 computers, TNMOC has been able to help three entrants in The Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen (GISHWHES). The contestants wanted to find how long it would take to fly from New York to Reykjavik, Iceland, travelling at an average speed of 400mph.

First to arrive was 36 year-old. legal assistant and mother or two Becky Buck. She explained: “I’m a member of the international Team Waywardsons competing to win GISHWHES. We’ve been set about 175 challenges – all of them rather weird – to attempt during the week and we get points for completing them, and extra points for completing them with pizzazz! The winning team gets a trip to Iceland with GISHWHES founder, American actor Misha Collins.”

Apart from its barmy, fun challenges, GISHWHES also has a charitable purpose – it contributes to the charity Random Acts which promotes random acts of kindness. All entrants pay a fee which goes to the charity and teams receive points for showing all-round kindness to all sorts of people during the week.

Becky Buck had driven all the way from Dorchester in a seven-and-a-half-hour round trip just to witness and video the calculation on the TNMOC’s expertly restored 1960’s Elliott 903 computer. TNMOC volunteer Kevin Brunt demonstrated his programming skills in a 1964 version of the language of BASIC to perform a calculation that he could have done in his head!

“I have not smiled and laughed so much in years,” said Becky. “It takes me out of my comfort zone and I find myself doing all kinds of crazy things like running down a residential street in shoes and hat made of pineapple! I can involve my kids too. As one of my random acts of kindness, I will be visiting a care home with my kids, dressed as pirates, delivering flowers.

“I had time for only a short pit stop at the museum, but I did take the opportunity to look at the section on the history of gaming and got to meet a rather amazing robot called Pepper who was in the process of dazzling a group of youngsters. I have already planned to come back on a proper visit with my son who will love it!”

Next to arrive was Sarah Eagleston from Sutton Coldfield. Captaining Team Shiola, Sarah actually operated the early 1960’s Elliott 803 to perform the calculation – again with the expert assistance of Kevin Brunt, this time programming in ALGOL.

Sarah said: “I loved my visit to the Museum! I only wish I’d come at the opening of Summer Bytes when storm troopers were about. That would have let me complete another challenge! But I enjoyed my tour and thought the 1949 EDSAC computer being reconstructed was truly amazing.”

See Sarah's entry video here and some other hunt challenge photos.

The third entrant, Jamie Hampton of Team Widdermaker, hails from Buffalo in the USA and requested a video of the 1951 Harwell Dekatron / WITCH computer performing the calculation. TNMOC guide Sheridan Williams undertook the programming in machine code while the whirring and flashing lights of the WITCH were videoed by TNMOC Operations Director Victoria Alexander.

Twenty-six-year-old Jamie was delighted with the WITCH video: “I'm a programmer by profession and a hobbyist cryptographer. So of course, when I saw a vintage computer item, I thought of Bletchley immediately. It's an important place to me and I was very excited to get in contact. We are the reigning GISHWHES champions. To be able enter a video of the oldest working computer in action this year is quite something!”

Victoria Alexander, Operations Director at TNMOC, said: “As a museum, we receive lots of strange requests, but these ones come close to the top of the list! We’ve actually had more than twelve similar requests this week and have been able to help four – it has coincided with Summer Bytes which is festival with all sorts of zaniness and fun that runs every afternoon throughout August. We hope one of the teams we helped wins!”

The winner of the GISHWHES competition will be announced once the judges have sorted through and scored the bizarre list of entries.

Summer Bytes continues at The National Museum of Computing on Bletchley Park every afternoon until 28 August 2016. Full programme of events.**

About The National Museum of Computing

The National Museum of Computing, located on Bletchley Park, is an independent charity housing the world's largest collection of functional historic computers, including the rebuilt Colossus, the world’s first electronic computer, and the WITCH, the world's oldest working digital computer. The Museum enables visitors to follow the development of computing from the ultra-secret pioneering efforts of the 1940s through the large systems and mainframes of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and the rise of personal computing in the 1980s and beyond.

The Museum runs a highly successful Learning Programme for schools and colleges and promotes introductions to computer coding amongst young people to inspire the next generation of computer scientists and engineers.

Sponsors of the Museum have included Bletchley Park Science and Innovation Centre, Bloomberg, CreateOnline, Ceravision, Fujitsu, InsightSoftware.com, Ocado Technology, FUZE, 4Links, Google UK, IBM, NPL, HP Labs, and BCS.

Outside the long school holidays, the whole Museum is open to the public from 12 noon - 5pm on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, spring and summer Bank Holidays and during long school holidays. The Colossus and Tunny galleries are open daily. Public and private Guided Tours are available and bookable online – see the website or the iPhone app for details. Educational and corporate group visits are available by prior arrangement.

For more information about TNMOC and trustees, see www.tnmoc.org and follow @tnmoc on Twitter and The National Museum of Computing on Facebook and Google+. A TNMOC iPhone App is also available from the iPhone App Store.

Media Contact

Stephen Fleming, Palam Communications
01635 299116
s.fleming@palam.co.uk