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Let me put in a word for The National Museum of Computing, www.tnmoc.org in Bletchley Park, where you can see the real thing (I can’t remember which state of refurbished/rebuilt/replica it is), along with a replica bombe, EDSAC (being built), the marvellously blinkenlicht-y WITCH, and (literal!) tons of other old computers. It’s an easy excursion by train from London, and you can combine it with a visit to bletchleypark.org.uk (it’s the same site).

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The machine is a replica rebuilt from old photos of the original.

The level of secrecy around these machines at the time led to them all being destroyed, along with all of the plans! This is perhaps more understandable given the UK kept the fact it had cracked the encryption secret and continued to offer similar machines to other states so it could spy on them for many years after the war!

I was there yesterday, which is what led me to stumbling on the submitted link. The people in TNMOC are astonishing - their knowledge, experience, and passion was one of the best museum experiences I’ve ever had.

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