Uploaded January 2021 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
The National Museum of Computing houses the world’s largest collection of working historical computers.
Our expert team maintains, restores and rebuilds systems that tell the story of Britain's business, war-time and personal computing history.
In this video Gavin Clarke and museum chair Andrew Herbert attempt to answer when and who built the first computer. Simple, right? Depends...
Got a question about the history of war-time cryptographic and modern electronic computing? Curious about our work and collection? Tweet us with the hashtag: #askTNMOC or email us using the address shown on-screen at the end of the video.
You can also go deeper by joining us in person or by taking a guide-lead, virtual tour of our museum:
tnmoc.org/events/2020/126/7/the-national-museum-of-computing-public-tour
Photo and video credits:
- Manchester Baby (SSEM): Science Museum Group Collection, © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, used under Creative Commons license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
- Lyons tea shop, Brighton. From the collection of Royal Pavilion and Museums Brighton and Hove
- Leo I and II/I computer: credit: Science Museum Group Collection
- Video footage of Colossus, EDSAC: This video is released by TNMOC under Creative Commons license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The National Museum of Computing houses the world’s largest collection of working historical computers.
Our expert team maintains, restores and rebuilds systems that tell the story of Britain's business, war-time and personal computing history.
In this video Gavin Clarke and museum chair Andrew Herbert attempt to answer when and who built the first computer. Simple, right? Depends...
Got a question about the history of war-time cryptographic and modern electronic computing? Curious about our work and collection? Tweet us with the hashtag: #askTNMOC or email us using the address shown on-screen at the end of the video.
You can also go deeper by joining us in person or by taking a guide-lead, virtual tour of our museum:
tnmoc.org/events/2020/126/7/the-national-museum-of-computing-public-tour
Photo and video credits:
- Manchester Baby (SSEM): Science Museum Group Collection, © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, used under Creative Commons license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
- Lyons tea shop, Brighton. From the collection of Royal Pavilion and Museums Brighton and Hove
- Leo I and II/I computer: credit: Science Museum Group Collection
- Video footage of Colossus, EDSAC: This video is released by TNMOC under Creative Commons license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
