22 May
2014
22 May
'14
6:01 p.m.
On 22/05/2014 21:48, Robert Jarratt wrote:
Have you visited MOSI at all? I haven't been
recently, but they have lots of
stationary steam engines which are often in steam, I could spend hours
watching those. They also have lots of locomotives and aircraft too, but
most of those are not operational. I am sure Dave could give you a more up
to date status on all those things though.
There was a long period when the Steam
Engines didn't run because the
boiler needed replacing, and there may be things that are currently not
being demonstrated due to a health and safety revue. This includes the
Hartree Differential Analyser pending the fitting of more emergency stop
buttons, so we get issues there as well.... They also have a Steam
Locomotive which is frequently in steam with rides available. For
computing they have the replica SSEM, or Baby. A valve computer with
Williams Tube stores.
I still think the best bit is the archives , I could spent days in there
ordering boxes of stuff. There are original glass slides and programming
sheets for the Hartree Differential Analyser. There are many documents
for Ferranti Computers, plus the PDP-8.
Yes there is some red tape and other issues, but in general its going
places...
Dave
G4UGM