An incomplete history of London's television studios

Martin Kempton's survey of London's television studios

Enigma code machine simulators

During WWII the Germans used mechanical devices to encrypt their radio messages. The best known of these machines is the Enigma, which was initially invented in 1918 for commercial applications, until it was adopted by the German Army for military encypherment. Not many Enigma devices are available today, but some can be seen in dedicated exhibitions throughout the world. As it is rather difficult to get your hands on 'the real thing', some have developed Enigma simulators in software.

The Alan Turing Home Page

Founder of computer science, mathematician, philosopher, codebreaker, strange visionary and a gay man before his time.

The Museum of HP Calculators

The Museum of HP Calculators displays and describes Hewlett-Packard calculators introduced from 1968 to 1986 plus a few interesting later models. There are also sections on calculating machines and slide rules as well as sections for buying and selling HP calculators, an HP timeline, collecting information and a software library.

The Test Card Gallery

The BBC and ITV have over the years used a number of tuning signals, test cards and captions either for engineering purposes, or just to fill time in the days before breakfast and daytime TV. This page shows some of them, and some of the captions used in days past.

Prestel - The Post Office Viewdata Service

I had a BT Prestel account on my BBC Micro back in the 1980s : were you too there before the Internet? Perhaps also in "The CUG" (Closed User Group).

The BBC Micro turns 30

The BBC Micro turns 30 The 8-bit 1980s dream machine