Swindon based British Computer Society (BCS) has helped secure the future of Colossus, the world's first digital computer, in its original location at Bletchley Park where it cracked Nazi codes during the World War II and played a key role in the Allied victory.

Colossus will form an important focus of the National Museum of Computing, being developed by the Codes and Ciphers Heritage Trust (CCHT) in partnership with Bletchley Park Trust (BPT).

“Colossus is a genuine milestone in computing history - not just in terms of the crucially important role it played in winning World War II, but also in terms of the way it paved the way for the future of computing,” said Professor Nigel Shadbolt, BCS President.

“BCS is therefore delighted and honoured to support the re-installation of Colossus in its original position at Bletchley and, through the BCS Computer Conservation Society, to have helped in rebuilding a fully operational Colossus.”

Andy Clark, a director and Trustee of CCHT said: ”Recent history resonates through Bletchley's Block H and it is the most fitting of locations for the developing National Museum of Computing.

“BCS’s very generous donation to enable Colossus to stay on its original site is a key step in our plans and we are thrilled and gratified by their support to secure such a vital part of our computer heritage.’

Planned for development throughout 2007, the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park will show how the painstaking work of the Bletchley Park code breakers cracking first the Enigma and then the Lorenz machine gave rise to the age of digital computing.

The Museum will complement Bletchley Park Trust's story of code breaking up to the Colossus and will allow visitors to follow the development of computing from the ultra-secret pioneering efforts of that time, through the mainframes of the 1960s and 1970s, and the rise of personal computing in the 1980s. Viewing of the operational Colossus is already open to the public.