Tony Sale

Timeline

1. 1949–1952

   George, a humanoid robot

   A Meccano robot called George, which he began building as a teenager, reaches its fourth version in 1949 and draws heavy media coverage. Serving in the Royal Air Force from 1949 until 1952 as an instructor at the Officers Radar School at RAF Debden, he builds a 6ft George from the aluminium of a crashed Wellington bomber, with light-sensitive eyes that home in on an illuminated beer bottle. Newspapers feature George as one of the earliest humanoid robots built in the UK.

2. 1952–1963

   Marconi and then MI5

   In 1952, he becomes a research assistant at Marconi Research Laboratories in Chelmsford. MI5 takes him on in 1957, and he works with Peter Wright on radio interception until 1963, leaving as a Principal Science Officer.

3. 1963–1986

   Founding Alpha Systems

   In 1963, he joins Hunter Engineering in Ampthill, Bedfordshire, and leads a weapons design team there for five years. Alpha Systems, the software firm he founds in 1968, goes under in 1978; he starts several other software companies and becomes an independent consultant in 1986.

4. 1989–1993

   Science Museum and Bletchley Park

   As a senior curator at the Science Museum in London from 1989, he works with Doron Swade to restore early computers and helps start the Computer Conservation Society. He joins the campaign to save Bletchley Park from housing development in 1991, becomes secretary of the new Bletchley Park Trust in 1992, and is the first curator when the park opens as a museum in 1993.

5. 1993–2007

   Rebuilding Colossus

   In 1993, he starts the Colossus Rebuild Project to build a working replica of the Mark 2 Colossus, the codebreaking computer that Tommy Flowers built at the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill in 1943. With almost all original drawings burned, he and a team of volunteers recreate the logic used to break the German Tunny cipher. The machine is officially finished in 2007 and is now part of the collection at The National Museum of Computing.

6. 1997–2000

   Comdex award and a Silver Medal

   The Colossus rebuild brings him the Comdex IT Personality of the Year award for 1997. In 2000, the Royal Scottish Society of Arts gives him its Silver Medal.

7. 2005–2010

   Founding a museum, reviving George

   In 2005, he becomes a co-founder of The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park and serves as a trustee. In 2010, George works again after 45 years in a garage, and he donates the robot to the museum, noting that no computer of the time was small enough to make George intelligent.

8. 2011–2019

   Death and posthumous honours

   He dies in 2011 at the age of 80, still a trustee of the museum. The Computer Conservation Society establishes the Tony Sale Award for Computer Conservation and Restoration in 2012, and The National Museum of Computing awards him a posthumous Honorary Fellowship in 2019.