Bletchley boffin honoured

Computer archaeologist Tony Sale, the man behind the Colossus Rebuild project at Bletchley Park, was declared IT personality of the year at Comdex UK last week.

Sale is museums director at Bletchley Park Trust, the centre where boffins worked to break the Enigma code during World War II. He used the occasion to buck the fashion for non-proprietary kit by promoting the virtues of machines designed for very specific purposes.

Sale is trying to raise funds to finance the rebuilding of Colossus, the world's first electronic valve computer.