Elderly Bletchley Park volunteer sacked for showing Colossus exhibit to visitors
theregister.co.ukSaddening story. I had the chance of visiting Bletchley Park and the Museum about a year ago, and the rebuild of the Colossus [1] is definitely a highlight of the exhibit — especially. All the volunteers I met seemed fully dedicated to their educative mission.
There is so much history in that place, and so much energy for hoarding, preserving, and showing those marvels to the public, that I really hope it can remain as welcoming and entertaining as it was when I visited.
I have no faith in the Bletchley Park Trust and their grand vision of "a world class museum and heritage site". They simply have to accommodate the volunteers at the The National Museum of Computing. This is the same kind of bantant ignorant british cockups that lead to the death of Alan Turing. A good museum experience is always rooted in the people who are passionate about the exhibition and want to pass on understanding and history about it. Who could possibly be more passionate about the Colossus than the people who restored it? For some added insight in the work a Bletchley Park see this clip from inventions that changed the world by Jeremy Clarksson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEQeHCrZJm0
This is really bad. I got a guided tour around the museum by a retired guy who'd used some of the analog machines in rocket/nuclear research. He really brought the story of computation to life - little things like showing you a Cray Supercomputer the size of a fridge, that's now outclassed by your iPhone.
As a simple test, which would have interested Alan Turing more: an old house, or a museum that shows you the nuts and bolts of code + computation so you can do it yourself?