A Feranti Argus 500 Computer Was at The National Museum of Computing on Saturday for the special Supporters Meeting. This is the Feranti Argus 500 computer used to control the entire AGR power station at Dungeness. It was being used from inception in 1969 right up to 2021 when they finally closed it down. For sensors and control of everything in the station, even the fine manipulation of control rods to optimise power output. It was fun rebooting the machine from the panel switches and paper tape reader. A real insight into how a CPU works at grass roots level. Even phones work identically, except scaled up by a billion times. The only reason they didn't upgrade to modern computer systems is because it just worked. They were running out of spares though. But the station was shut down sooner than that 'fortunately'. (Feranti went bust in the early 90's as a direct result of a state and private sector fraud and grafting. ) There are still 2 machines running in Heysham p...
North Stoke Life
Sightings from North Stoke, Oxfordshire, England