Previous Temporary Exhibitions
The Museum has two temporary exhibition spaces, where short term displays are shown covering all aspects of computing. Details of previous displays can be seen below.
Flowers to Fibre
Gallery Sponsored By: The Post Office Remembrance Fellowship
March 2023 to July 2024
The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) and The Communications Museum Trust (CMT) celebrated the anniversary of the start of a journey to modernise Britain’s telephone network under the engineering genius of Tommy Flowers, the man behind Bletchley Park’s Colossus code-breaking computer.
Flowers and his successors at the General Post Office (GPO) and British Telecom (BT) worked for half a century starting in 1947 to make the existing copper voice network a faster and more reliable vehicle for the digital services we enjoy today. They not only turned research into core principles of technology underpinning telecoms - including fibre – they also built the world’s first digital phone exchanges in Britain.
The joint TNMOC and CMT exhibition Flowers to Fibre took visitors on a journey through this often overlooked story: from first pilots of the prototype digital exchanges to the planned national switch from copper to fibre after 2025. It shonesa light on the stories of those involved, too.
Flowers to Fibre was a hands-on, interactive experience that included:
A working example of early Strowger electro-mechanical telephone exchange equipment that dominated the national phone network. Visitors could use it to make phone calls.
Rare examples of components from the early modern exchanges, a prototype of System X digital telephone switching system, and ADSL pilot equipment from the dawn of Britain’s broadband.
The chance to experience “dial-up internet” today with the technology of the past – a 1990s’ PC/modem.
Press material from coverage of the GPO’s very first, ground-breaking digital-exchange pilot.
The chance for those involved in development of Britain’s high-speed phone network to record their stories as part of a new TNMOC archive project.
Exhibition Gallery
Charles Babbage - Who do YOU think he is?
26th November 2022 to 28th December 2022
This pop-up exhibition celebrated the 200th anniversary of Charles Babbage’s announcement of the invention of the Difference Engine. As part of the gallery opening, Doron Swade, a leading authority on Babbage, gave a presentation on Babbage and described the controversies, rivalries and challenges that faced the first computer pioneer in his attempts to mechanise calculation and how he was led from this to general-purpose computing.
“There are many misconceptions about Babbage, his motivation for the engines, and the reasons for his failure to build them. This exhibition offers an opportunity and a platform to reveal new findings and new perspectives. Be ready to be surprised’ - Doron Swade
The exhibition featured pictures of:
Difference Engine No. 1, the first complete design for an automatic calculating machine.
The Analytical Engine, a fully-fledged programmable general-purpose digital computer that he designed when work on Difference Engine No. 1 stopped
Difference Engine No. 2, an improved version of the first.
The reconstructed Difference Engine No. 2 (which Babbage never actually finished) built by the Science Museum in 2002.
A large portrait of Babbage himself and a portrait of Ada Lovelace, who collaborated with Babbage to write the first programs for the Analytical Engine.
In the display cabinet are several pictures of reconstructions of parts of the Difference Engines in Brass/Steel and Meccano with a real model made of Lego.
Exhibition Gallery
BBC though the decades
October 2022 to 21 November 2022
This pop-up exhibition was named “BBC through the decades” to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, the pioneering and globally trusted public service broadcaster. The BBC has been at the forefront of analogue and digital technology for a century, and today the BBC reaches an average audience of 489 million adults every week. Visitors to the TNMOC exhibition witnessed the evolution of the technologies that have formed the backbone of the BBC over its history and were able to get hands-on with the technology that made the BBC famous.
The exhibition showcased what it takes to build a globally recognised broadcaster. It’s a story of technology through the ages that begins with analogue radio broadcast technology of the 1920s and ends with BBC iPlayer and the internet-enabled platforms of today. It included the first television broadcast in 1932, the move to colour in 1967, the launch of the BBC website in 1997, and the digital switchover that began in 2007.
“TNMOC’s exhibition honours the remarkable technological evolution at the BBC across its 100-year history, and I’m overjoyed to be able to open such a fascinating celebration of how far we’ve come.” - Rory Cellan-Jones, fomer BBC correspondent.
Highlights of the nostalgia-filled exhibition included:
Ceefax reimagined – Ceefax, which began at the BBC in 1974, was celebrated with a special TNMOC version of the world’s first Teletext information service.
The BBC Micro, an 8-bit microcomputer which is still going strong 40 years since its launch. The Museum uses several of these venerable machines in its BBC classroom, and visitors were able to get hands-on with retro games.
A BBC Domesday Project machine from 1986. The Domesday Project was a landmark survey of the country in the 80s. TNMOC has an original machine that still runs off its original LaserDiscs.
Early radios and TVs.
Exhibition Gallery
Raspberry Pi 10th Anniversary
March 2022 to September 2022
In 2012, Raspberry Pi started shipping its first computers in order to inspire young people to re-imagine the role of technology in their lives. What started with a low-cost, high performance computer has grown into a movement of millions of people of all ages and backgrounds. Today, Raspberry Pi is the UK's best selling computer company, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation is one of the world's leading educational non-profits. Raspberry Pi computers make technology accessible to people and businesses all over the world. They are used everywhere from homes and schools to factories, offices and shops.
This pop-up exhibition, delivered by the team from Raspberry Pi, showcased the journey of the Raspberry Pi and highlights some of the creative projects developed by the Raspberry Pi community.
Visitors had the opportunity to be inspired by the creations displayed and have a go at the Raspberry Pi activities. Visitors were also able to explore the Museum and see how the Raspberry Pi is used to simulate machines from a variety of decades and displays (IRIS radar feed in the NATS gallery, simulating the ICL 2966 George 3 operating system in the LSG, showing various presentations on TV displays around the Museum).
Eben Upton, CEO of Raspberry Pi Limited said: "I'm very proud that we can kick off Raspberry Pi's tenth birthday with an exhibition at this key historic site for computing. We're delighted to see our computer among major artefacts of British technology. I'm sure that families and young people visiting the exhibition will come away bursting with inspiration, and keen to learn about all the things they can do with computers."
Exhibition Gallery
1980s British Home Computing
July 2020 to February 2022
From Sinclair ZX80s through ZX Spectrums to the BBC micro, visitors of a certain age were able to relive their entry into computing with hands-on access to many of the original machines. Video clips also gave reminders of the landmark BBC computer literacy series that introduced so many of today’s computer programmers to the fast-developing world of computing.
Visitors could also watch excerpts from the very popular BBC Computer Literacy Project TV programs again, presented by Ian McNaught-Davis and Fred Harris amongst others.
The exhibition also covered the ARM architecture that was designed by the team who created the BBC Micro at Acorn. This used the RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) philosophy in its design, setting it apart from many of its rivals at the time and is still in use today in many smartphones and devices.
Exhibition Gallery
Open University 50th Anniversary
June 2019 to June 2020
The pop-up exhibition about the early days of computing at the Open University (OU) curation was led by Roger Moore (left) and the gallery was opened on Friday, 27 September 2019 by Prof John Haughton (of the Open University and an Observer columnist - right).
As pioneers in distance learning education before personal computers were the norm and the internet became commonplace, the OU developed several innovative methods to enable its students to study on computers in their own homes. The exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see six of these machines. It also presents an OU timeline, a video about the OU's early computing and micro-electronics courses and an array of historic photographs of the OU's computing since its foundation in 1969.
Exhibition Gallery
Heath-Robinson
January to May 2019
The Heath Robinson code-breaking machine was named after W Heath Robinson, the illustrator. Because of wartime secrecy, he never would have known.
Special guest Peter Higginson, great nephew of W Heath Robinson, gave a talk about Heath Robinson's interest in science and how it influenced his work and legacy.
Colossus Rebuild chief engineer Phil Hayes spoke about the Heath Robinson machine, how it inspired Colossus and what it actually did.
The exhibition consisted of eight original Heath Robinson illustrations in partnership with the Heath Robinson Museum in Pinner, London.
