Escape from The National Museum of Computing A group of The Register's writers (only just) escaped The National Museum of Computing's Escape Room Experience after learning a bit about cryptography and testing the patience of the museum's volunteers. We were invited to take part and four of us opted for the 1980s Challenge, mainly because the words "BBC Micro" were used, …
IIRC the museum is largely run by volunteers and, at least when I was there, the relationship with the Bletchley Park museum is not as good as it should be.
It's well worth a visit, though you probably need to bring a bit of understanding of how computers work and how they've developed. Personally, I found looking at the electronic parts, some of which are now more than 40 years old but I remember from my childhood, less rewarding than the older stuff where you can see something's going on. Maybe that will change over the years.
"Personally, I found looking at the electronic parts, some of which are now more than 40 years old but I remember from my childhood, less rewarding than the older stuff where you can see something's going on."
I could take the case off my 40 year old Video Genie to show you. Then I could put the case back on and we can have a play with Galaxians, or Haunted House Adventure. At least it still worked last year when I dug it out. Sadly, all the expansions like disk drives got sold off, just the built in cassette deck to load tapes from, which surprisingly, still worked!!
(Shit! Is it really 40 years old now?)
I think this is why Tron hit such a nerve: an attempt to show what was going on in those new fangled electronic gizmos that were popping up everywhere.
But there is something about seeing the various electric and mechanical memory devices that were trying to solve the problem of persistence for the state machine. It was only when my dad demonstrated the rebuilt Baby at MoSI that I understood how DRAM really worked. A classical boffin hack but good enough to still be in use, in principle, in all today's systems.
That sounds really good, but I'll be stumped on the Beeb - I was a Spectrum 48K boy (ended up programming in Zaks Z80 - all forgotten now). I only used a Beeb twice - 1) was a 12 week computer course my dear old Mum bought for me on my 23rd birthday, and all that really went through was the basic programming and structures of BASIC programming - I didn't have the heart to tell my Mum I had already taught myself all of it on the Speccy and I didn't learn a thing.
The second was one Xmas when I borrowed my Mates as he was going away and I played Elite for about 18 hours non-stop over Xmas day night and most of Boxing day - I done a big drug run, and after what seemed like days the Police gradually stopped attacking me where ever I went, so ended up with a better ship/weapons/add-ons etc. - never did make 'Elite' though :-(
You're a good person for not letting on to your Mum that you were already competent in BASIC. -->
I have been on many (too many) courses on topics where I considered myself competent, nay expert, and I confess that I have never failed to learn something new. Even on training courses where I was the trainer, I feel I have learned something from someone who has a different view/method on the problem/topic. It's only when you know a lot about something technical, you realise how little you know.
It's those that know it all but in fact know nothing so cannot learn that are dangerous. Think PHB.
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