A new international award for computer conservation has been established in memory of Tony Sale, a pioneer of computer conservation who led the project to rebuild Colossus.

The Computer Conservation Society (CCS) has launched the Tony Sale Award to recognise an individual or group that has made an outstanding engineering achievement in computer conservation. 

Tony Sale (1931- 2011) and the rebuilt Colossus

Tony Sale is best known for leading the team that rebuilt the Colossus computer. He was also a key figure in starting the campaign to save Bletchley Park in the early 1990s, in helping to found the UK National Museum of Computing and in establishing the Computer Conservation Society, which is a joint venture between the British Computer Society (BCS), the Chartered Institute for IT, London's Science Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.

David Hartley, a member of the CCS Tony Sale Award committee, said:

"When Tony Sale died unexpectedly last year, we felt compelled to celebrate his remarkable computer conservation achievements in some special way. For more than two decades, Tony made a huge contribution in promoting the public understanding of our computer heritage and in showing that computer conservation is a stimulating voyage of discovery rather than a simple recreation of a machine."

The award, which is being supported by Google UK, and is open to any individual or group anywhere in the world,  is for demonstrable computer conservation work, preferably completed in the past three years, which is already on display or could be made publicly accessible. Potential candidates are, for example, the restoration of the PDP 1 at the Computer History Museum or the recreation of Konrad Zuse's Z1. 

Projects will be assessed in terms of their completeness, originality, ingenuity, impact and the extent to which they have been made accessible. Full details of the Judging Criteria are on the award's website.

The closing date for nominations for the first award is 31 July 2012 and the award, to comprise a trophy and a travel bursary, will be presented at a special event in London in October. 

More Information

The Tony Sale Award

The Colossus Rebuild Project

The National Museum of Computing

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