bletchley park

1 definition found

bletchley park - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  Bletchley Park
  
     <body, history> A country house and grounds some 50 miles
     North of London, England, where highly secret work deciphering
     intercepted German military radio messages was carried out
     during World War Two.  Thousands of people were working there
     at the end of the war, including a number of early computer
     pioneers such as Alan Turing.
  
     The nature and scale of the work has only emerged recently,
     with total secrecy having been observed by all the people
     involved.  Throughout the war, Bletchley Park produced highly
     important strategic and tactical intelligence used by the
     Allies, (Churchill's "golden eggs"), and it has been claimed
     that the war in Europe was probably shortened by two years as
     a result.
  
     An exhibition of wartime code-breaking memorabilia, including
     an entire working Colossus, restored by Tony Sale, can be
     seen at Bletchley Park on alternate weekends.
  
     The Computer Conservation Society (CCS), a specialist group
     of the British Computer Society runs a museum on the site
     that includes a working Elliot mainframe computer and many
     early minicomputers and microcomputers.  The CCS hope to
     have substantial facilities for storage and restoration of old
     artifacts, as well as archive, library and research
     facilities.
  
     Telephone: Bletchley Park Trust office +44 (908) 640 404
     (office hours and open weekends).
  
     (1998-12-18)