Museum Tour: History and Development of Computing

Experience the history and development of computing at The National Museum of Computing. Skip the line and enjoy a hands-on, interactive museum with expert guides and volunteers.

Duration: 6 hours
Cancellation: 24 hours
Highlights
  • The National Museum of Computing - The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) is home to the world’s largest collection of working historic computers.
    Follow the development of computing: from the Turing-Welchman Bombe, Enigma, Lorenz and Colossus of the 1940s through the large systems and mainframes of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, to the rise of…
What's Included
  • Expert guides available
Additional Information

Our Museum animates the evolution and continuous progression of computing, aiming to inspire, facilitate research, promote learning, and provide entertainment to a diverse audience of all ages. We operate as a practical, working museum. Our knowledgeable volunteers and escorts are at your service to elucidate and showcase our operational collection….

Location
The National Museum of Computing
Block H, Bletchley Park
Cancellation Policy

For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.

Customer Ratings
4.6
(117 Ratings)
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Andrewca4135vm
Jul 22, 2025
A must see museum with exceptional guides - Some great exhibits. The most striking feature was how helpful the staff were in not only giving the detailed brief on each major area but also in answering questions that they must have heard a hundred times. 10/10 for guide and room staff. Detail for Enigma, Colossus and Bombe was excellent. Just enough to understand but not enough to give you nightmares. I would like to have had a more structured 'evolutionary path' for the exhibits that explained a little more about how technology evolved. Perhaps a bit more of a sense of who the players were throughout the 80's onwards may have been interesting too. Having said that, what is there at the moment is excellent and well worth a visit. You could ditch the games area for me:)
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Carolso817ty
Jul 18, 2025
- Technology and history colliding in a really fascinating way. Many thanks to Frank for the Bombe stories and everyone else for making it worth coming from Australia for. Toilets are great too!
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Mandy
Jul 14, 2025
A great day out for all ages, so much to see & do, so much to learn, with fantastic volunteers. - A massive thank you to all the wonderful friendly volunteers who give up their precious time to talk about the items in the museum. We learned so much. And to have so much hands on equipment makes the visit perfect for any age. We all had the best day.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Lisacg9956bm
Jul 12, 2025
An incredible place with an amazing team and a vital part of history - The National Museum of Computing is an absolute must see and well worth the visits. The team of volunteers and museum staff are incredible, and really take the time to talk through the exhibits -> a huge majority of the devices at the museum still work! The volunteers were so passionate and clearly really care about the museum. Very fun place, for kids and adults as well. Highly recommend the gaming section where you can get holds on with some old school games (but feel prepared to feel old when you see that a PS2 is now considered old enough for a museum!). Overall fantastic day out and not to be missed.
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Charles_and_susan
Jun 5, 2025
An amazing insight into WW11 and early computing. - This was absulutely amazing from start to finish. The friendly welcome was good and I started with a coffee and cake - what could be better. Most of my time was spent in the wartime sections. The volunteers were so knowledgeable and keen to impart the information to anyone who listened. After I'd toured the rest of the museum I went back to the Bombe room and spent more time with the guy there. He was so enthused about the project and offered various levels of explanation depending on your questions and general understanding. I saw my first computer (the Dragon 32) and my first office computer (an ICL with twin five and a quarter inch floppy discs running CPM not DOS). I came away understanding a little more of how complex the code breaking during WW11 was and, one the way home, realised that there were many more questions to follow.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Prairiecode
Jun 1, 2025
Running one-of-a-kind machines from the 1940s on, with fantastic volunteers - This is at the top of my must-visit list when visiting the UK. There is nothing else like it anywhere. They are known for the Colossus and Bombe faithful recreations, which are incredible machines - and you get to see them run. These machines were a big part of winning World War II. TNMOC has the only surviving -- and sometimes the only WORKING surviving -- example of many early computers. My favorite places are the large systems and first generation galleries. The volunteers were happy to explain the unique serial computer, the WITCH, and the ICL and PDP-11. The BBC Micro gallery was also impressive, and the volunteers showed off the expansion capabilities of the BBC micro, the networking capabilities, and even the Archimedes machines. Besides the one-of-a-kind artifacts -- many of which actually RUN -- the other thing that makes this museum special is the volunteers. Four of them in two different galleries took lots of time to show off the computers, show us logic diagrams and soldering points even. This is a museum with heart, and the people that care about the exhibits are the ones that are there when you visit. I have also visited the most well-known computing museum in North America, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. Compared to that one, TNMOC has more unique examples from the earliest days of computing, from the 1940s-1960s. The first time I visited the UK, I was on a business trip and had one free day. I opted to visit Bletchley and TNMOC, to the surprise of many I visited with. It was the perfect choice.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
P3004vvjaimer
May 29, 2025
The national museum of computing - I absolutely loved it. It was wheelchair accessible and had games on computers to play aswell. There is a ww2 section with the bombe and collosus in it. The staff were very nice and new what they were talking about in depth.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
I6908vhdiegoa
May 27, 2025
One of the best computer museums I've been - One of the most fun computer museum I've ever been. People there is just amazing giving time for you explaining everything about computing, code cracking, enigma machine, the bomb, edsac, leo and many other historically relevant machines. There's also a section for games and personal computing full of pieces. A very "complete" collection.
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Amsstafordshire
Jul 11, 2025
This is NOT the enigma code museum - We thought it was the Bletchley tour where the Enigma was and it wasn't. So had to rebook for the proper betchley didn't use the tickets so £30 was wasted
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Alan_g
Jun 11, 2025
Viator website decieving - Be very careful when booking thru viator. We ended up paying full entry again at the door as tickets we'd purchased were not for the experience we were after, nothing to do with Bletchley at all. It's very difficult then to contact the right department of viator to correct it. The low marks are for viator. The Bletchley park is well worth it, a great day but marred by paying £15 pp for nothing thru viator.
Review provided by Viator
From $20
up to 15 guests
1 - Adult
Cancellation: Free cancellation up to 24 hours before the start of your experience (local time).