Astro Club Trip - Cambridge

[Alan White]

I and fellow members of my Astro Club, had a grand day out to Cambridge last Friday 1st December.
It was nerdy heaven for most of us.

Club is Castle Point Astronomy Club.

Museum 1 - The Centre for Computing History
https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/

A real blast from the past with Spectrums, BBC Micro and Atari and Commodores all calling me.
Oddly the real blast of the visit was a working Binatone Tennis Game.

and the afternoon a little trip into Town proper and.

The Whipple Museum.
https://www.whipplemuseum.cam.ac.uk/

For me the Refractor at the entrance had a certain attraction, a mere £170 in 1910, or about £24K if it was now.

But the Globe Collection really floated my boat, Lunar and Mars were super and showed how our knowledge and technology to know 
has grown over time.

We had a great time, nice to spend a day with Astro folks and also to get a peaceful museum trip without boredom setting in for others.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Alan White

[RobertI]

What a great day out Alan, I must do the same sometime, they look really interesting. Last time I went shopping in Cambridge there was a shop full of various vintage computers, running classic games, which you could play for a modest fee. Pretty cool. 

[Alan White]

4 minutes ago, RobertI said:

What a great day out Alan, I must do the same sometime, they look really interesting. Last time I went shopping in Cambridge there was a shop full of various vintage computers, running classic games, which you could play for a modest fee. Pretty cool. 

You could play a selection of consoles and a few select computers, but many were static sadly.
A great fun and blast from the past.

They had a 1970's into early 80's office set up, all looked right from wallpaper to furniture, all it lacked was the lingering cigarette smoke.

 

[RobertI]

18 hours ago, Alan White said:

You could play a selection of consoles and a few select computers, but many were static sadly.
A great fun and blast from the past.

They had a 1970's into early 80's office set up, all looked right from wallpaper to furniture, all it lacked was the lingering cigarette smoke.

 

Ha, yes the cigarette smoke! In my first job there were some heavy smokers in the office. I remember going into a meeting and I put my files down on the table near an ashtray and sent up a cloud of ash. For some reason everyone blamed me, rather than the people who had setting fire to pieces of paper all day!! 

[Alan White]

Indeed memories of times thankfully past

I worked in an engineering office where everyone but me smoked, so stained that the wallpaper was brown and the windows looked tinted.

Suffice to say I only stayed 18 months.

 

[Mr H in Yorkshire]

Re smoking, I remember as a young boy being 'shusshed' in a library by the smoking librarian! Also as a primary school boy our sadist [removed word] alcoholic (sorry teacher) also smoked constantly. I'm glad times have changed, and I say that as an ex-smoker (stopped 40 years ago, best thing I ever did).