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.

PETITION: Government to indicate countries of the UK are open to accede to the US

Sign the Petition A Dialogue on the UK's Accession to the United States Executive Summary This initiative seeks to foster a formal dialogue regarding the potential accession of the countries of the United Kingdom , to the United States , as individual states. Simply put, this petition is asking the government to start a conversation about the benefits of leaving the UK and joining the United States. The objective is to evaluate the benefits to citizens and stakeholders, encouraging a constructive discourse on the political, economic, and social implications of such a union. If Wales , Northern Ireland , Scotland , or England were to leave the United Kingdom, it would end their system of constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy . Instead, if they joined the United States as separate states, they would govern themselves under the U.S. federal system while receiving its protection. This proposal recognises that immediate change is unlikely but urges a serious con...

Who Said There Was Anything Wrong With a Worldview?

Who Said There Was Anything Wrong With a Worldview? I didn't. But it's when I believe my worldview, is truth, that I become violent without realising it. This is extremely hard for people to accept as possible. The resistance to seeing it and the temptation to escape from looking, is built into its foundations. So, I never said worldviews are bad for us. I did say that when I believe my worldview is a fact, then "I" become root cause of the worlds problems. Thought creates an image of the world. Then thought worships the image that thought created. I am scared of death. So I create an existential worldview about immortality - an image. This can be a God, a political ideology, scientific religiosity, atheism, planet saving activism, anything which my fear of death can hide behind. So if I do 'good' through this image I created, I will ultimately get a 'seat on the right hand side of God' , or whatever the image I created has defined as heaven. Then I w...

Facing Draco, Mining Dorado

This is a proposal to show how the 18.6 year real estate cycle is a hang over from times where the mechanics of the lunar month were used by high priests of the time to forecast ancient agricultural cycles - what we would today call a business cycle culminating in a financial crisis or a great recession. The 18.6 year period is governed by the intersection of lunar and solar eclipses. It is known scientifically as the Saros Cycle. Where all 3 harmonics of the orbit of the moon coincide once every 18.6 years. The ancient scholars knew this. And the politicians of the time used it to signal the day when the economy would be deliberately reset by fiat. This reset was necessary because this period was about how long the people of nations could abuse the economy before it was too late to recover on its own and much worse effects would have emerged. So it was the wisdom of the leadership of the time. As the aeons went by, the meaning and rationale of this policy became normalised - people an...

North Stoke Life

Search This Blog