Some more UK Retro Computer Museums - UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum

ortek_service · 20th Nov 2023, 12:07 pm

As well as the most well-known Cambridge's CfCH and Bletchley Park's TNMoC, I found out at Crash-Live 2023 about some others who were there / handing out leaflets that others may also not be aware of.

The North West Computer Museum, at Leigh, has recently been discussed on here, but I don't recall mention of:

Retro Collective in Stroud, that has two museums - Vintage computers and consoles in 'The Cave' as well as the 'Arcade Archive' that has original cabinets which span early electromechanical machines, Pong, Space Invaders and popular 90's hits.

And also the 'Retro Computer Museum' in Leicester, that preserves, displays and gives experience of computer and console systems from the 1950's onwards. They also have early Pong consoles through to the Sega and Nintendo console wars and many home computers from Sinclair, Acorn, Commodore & Atari etc. Plus also a good selection of arcade and original VR machines too, which are available to play on.
They told me they do organise a special advance-tickets only? event around 4 times a year, with guest speakers etc.
It seems they were once offered to base themselves at the nearby Snibston discovery centre, where I went to a weekend 'Silicon Dreams' computer festival back in 2013 (that featured talks from Acorn's Prof Steve Furber and Chris Smith who wrote the Spectrum ULA book on his reverse-engineering of it). But it seems that Council-owned building was found to have major issues, they couldn't afford to fix, so it's now no longer and they had a lucky escape by staying independent.

20th Nov 2023, 12:07 pm	#1
ortek_service Octode Join Date: May 2018 Location: Northampton, Northamptonshire, UK. Posts: 1,194	Some more UK Retro Computer Museums As well as the most well-known Cambridge's CfCH and Bletchley Park's TNMoC, I found out at Crash-Live 2023 about some others who were there / handing out leaflets that others may also not be aware of. The North West Computer Museum, at Leigh, has recently been discussed on here, but I don't recall mention of: Retro Collective in Stroud, that has two museums - Vintage computers and consoles in 'The Cave' as well as the 'Arcade Archive' that has original cabinets which span early electromechanical machines, Pong, Space Invaders and popular 90's hits. And also the 'Retro Computer Museum' in Leicester, that preserves, displays and gives experience of computer and console systems from the 1950's onwards. They also have early Pong consoles through to the Sega and Nintendo console wars and many home computers from Sinclair, Acorn, Commodore & Atari etc. Plus also a good selection of arcade and original VR machines too, which are available to play on. They told me they do organise a special advance-tickets only? event around 4 times a year, with guest speakers etc. It seems they were once offered to base themselves at the nearby Snibston discovery centre, where I went to a weekend 'Silicon Dreams' computer festival back in 2013 (that featured talks from Acorn's Prof Steve Furber and Chris Smith who wrote the Spectrum ULA book on his reverse-engineering of it). But it seems that Council-owned building was found to have major issues, they couldn't afford to fix, so it's now no longer and they had a lucky escape by staying independent.