title TouchType does Bletchley Park, Bletchley, Bedfordshire - 20th July 2012 intro Work organises a day trip to Bletchley Park near Milton Keynes - home of "Station X" and the top-secret code-breakers whose work is sometimes considered to have shortened World War II by a couple of years. For a software company, it's almost the equivalent of a pilgrimage, as it hosts a rebuilt Colossus - the world's first semi-programmable computer, built by GPO engineer Tommy Flowers and which helped crack the Lorenz ciphers used by the Nazi high command. Whilst several of the huts have been renovated, there's still a good selection of the original buildings in a somewhat decaying state - perfect "dereliction" fodder. imgp4609 A nice stained-glass roof imgp4610 Milling around in our "room for the day" imgp4612 Our tour guide rounds us up imgp4614 There's an intro talk by the Post Office imgp4615 An old garage imgp4617 Błaże sticks a hand up, as Poland is mentioned imgp4618 More history talks imgp4620 Dilly Knox's cottage imgp4621 The derelict Hut 2 imgp4622 Derelict corridor in Hut 2 imgp4623 A close-up of Hut 2 imgp4625 There's a talk in the Bombe room imgp4627 A reconstruction of the Bombe imgp4631 A shelf of Bombe inputs imgp4632 We walk back to Bletchley House imgp4633 Back in the "Churchill Room" prior to some lunch imgp4635 We explore the grand ballroom imgp4637 An ornate ceiling imgp4639 Bletchley Park Manor imgp4640 A wartime Austin 7 and a Willys Jeep imgp4643 Ad-hoc paintwork on some galvanised garage doors imgp4644 Bletchley's huts imgp4645 Some more dilapidated wooden huts imgp4646 The tour guide shows us the "radio room" imgp4649 There's an introduction to Colossus imgp4651 5-bit International Teletype-encoded punched tape imgp4653 The stunning rebuild of Colossus imgp4654 More Colossus imgp4656 Some bit of Colossus is repaired imgp4657 An oscilloscope traces out Colossus' output imgp4659 Anita and Błaże imgp4664 Racks of valves and wires imgp4666 A huge bank of hot valves imgp4668 Jon reaches out as if to touch the beast imgp4673 Collosus's paper tape drive imgp4678 A close-up of valves imgp4679 Another look at insane wiring imgp4680 Chris's Tigger is on a typewriter imgp4683 Abandoned furniture imgp4684 Old security gate, and an electric substation imgp4685 A heating-oil tank room imgp4686 Touchtype walks about in the rain imgp4687 Inside the electro-mechanical Bombe imgp4691 A slate statue of Alan Turing imgp4694 More derelict buildings around the site imgp4695 A 1940s building entrance imgp4697 Peeling paint imgp4698 Boarded-up buildings imgp4699 An exit sign on a boarded building imgp4701 Some of the renovated non-public parts of the site imgp4702 Renovated, but not public, 1940s buildings imgp4703 Boxes in an abandoned room imgp4704 Some old computer monitors lie around imgp4705 Some more mouldy buildings imgp4707 More boardings and peeling paint imgp4708 An ancient boiler room imgp4709 Half a "Hut 2" sign imgp4710 Un-restored wartime huts imgp4713 A plant grows up through some steps imgp4714 A stack of chairs in a derelict hut imgp4715 A hut whose roof is open to the elements imgp4717 Back in the Churchill Room