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The National Museum of Computing (TNMoC) and the Feranti Argus 500 Nuclear Reactor Computer

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 power stations today. Which will shut down in a couple of years too. We all know that government of all party's has failed signally to prepare for this. 

TNMoC are hoping to get the machines donated for museum spares so they can keep theirs running. The museum's basic operating principle is not to display a machine unless it can be run live. If you're a computing fan, there is no better place to spend a day than TNMoC.

Let us see if we can help source these spares when they become available. 

Marconi TAC - Transistorised Automatic Computer

The museum also runs a TAC computer which used to power the prior generation of Magnox reactors, this one direct from the Wylfa power station on Anglesey. This was purely for monitoring sensors though to help block any positive feedback event loops from a catastrophic failure.



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