To celebrate the impending release of  “Observations” I have decided to release the full film of “Obsolete?” for you to enjoy. Note : “Function” is meant to be just a black screen, because it is scary.

Very pleased to announce I will be performing at this years Vintage Computer Festival at The National Museum of Computing, Bletchley Park on June 19th and 20th, 2010. Check back to the sight nearer the times for the performances, however I am sure I will be on hand showing people around some of my favorite machines in the best computer museum ever. Bring the whole family!

Britain’s largest celebration of vintage computing is to be held at The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) in Bletchley Park from 19-20 June 2010.

Originating ten years ago in California’s Silicon Valley, to celebrate our computing heritage, Vintage Computing Festivals are now regular events held across the USA and in Germany. The June 2010 event at TNMOC will be the first in the UK and will pay particular tribute to the British contribution to the development of computing.

The festival, which is open to the general public and welcomes private exhibitors, will have exhibition stands, a full lecture programme, machine demonstrations, computer games and challenges, bring-and-buy sale, and performances of electronic music.

Exhibitions already committed include Acorn, Amiga, Atari, PDP11, Retro Computer Museum, Sinclair, and Sundown Demoparty (PCs). There will be performances by Pixelh8 and a guest appearance by one of the pioneers of British synthpop.

Yes it’s bit of an old clip but you can watch it most places in the world now that it is part of the BBC Learning Zone archive here. The clip is about the making of “Obsolete?” the large scale computer music work that was commissioned by the National Museum of Computing and funded by the PRS Foundation.

The second installment on this video can be seen here but sadly only in the UK.

It is also nice that teachers (like the one who told me about the clip) are using it as a resource to show contemporary electronic music in schools.

It was a small but very positive group at the Computing At School event and very good to see several ICT teachers willing to teach children computer programming.

It was also attended by my friend and colleague from the National Museum of Computing,  Peter Onion of the Elliot 803 Emulator fame, and is probably one of the best and dedicated computer programmers I know.

I discussed what I thought were some of the issues facing the decline of programmers, and the positive actions I am taking to make changes to it, in my “Computing Club” pilot schemes I am running in Suffolk at the moment, and although it is video game based it has had a high level of success already and has created several new programmers who have gone on to do other things besides games.

There were lots of good issues raised by everyone who attended, and hopefully there is now a lot more awareness of resources available to teach computer programming in schools, but certainly there is a lot more work to be done.

Computing At School has just published their first newsletter here.

It’s always good to visit, but this time was really good, mainly because so many of the other volunteers were so very productice. I was fortunate enough to get a lift with Peter Onion of the Elliott 803 Emulator fame and the car journey included loads of electronic music, Kraftwerk, Tubular Bells and Wendy Carlos’ Switched on Bach 2000. Anyway the archive is up and running and managed to find some information on the TRS-80 Color Computer I bought recently, and information on the EG2000 Colour Genie too, rooms are being opened and work is getting done. So all in all a productive and useful visit.

I was very fortunate to give a presentation of the work I did on Obsolete? at the National Museum of Computing, at the Open University in Milton Keynes Ecologies of Modern Heritage Forum. It was an extremely interesting day to see the vast array of different projects being done at Bletchley Park as a whole. Themes such as  History/Memory, Systems, Transmitting, Decay and Dr. Z Zhadrals excellent CIPHER project from archaeological digs to interaction with modern and old technology.  It was really good to see so many people who were passionate about doing projects that both highlight the amazing things at Bletchley Park and how much the site needs further help.  Overall it was a very good day, lots of interesting people and I am certain lots of interesting projects to come.

Tune in to hear me interviewed by Digital Planet in a special looking at Obsolete?, The National Museum of Computing and the rise of the personal computer. You can download the new version of the theme tune for free here and you can  listen again here. There is also a downloadable podcast here.

The Open University and Digital Planet, BBC World Service’s Weekly Technology programme, have joined forces to produce six special co-produced editions of the programme. Hosted by Gareth Mitchell, Digital Planet brings the clearest, sharpest guide to developments in our connected world to a worldwide audience via radio, digital and online.

For more information, listen online and listen again visit the Digital Planet BBC site here. Image reproduced with permission see footer.

Pixelh8’s most recent work “Obsolete?” is a audio and visual study of the people, machines, history of The National Museum of Computing, Bletchley Park and looks closely at the themes of mathematics, logic, code-breaking and enciphering. The project was funded by the PRS Foundations new music award and commissioned by The National Museum of Computing.

The music itself is composed using some of the oldest and rarest computers in the world such as the WWII code-breaking machine Colossus Mark 2 Rebuild, and the 1960’s Elliott 803 largely used for mathematics and some of the more commonplace machines such as the BBC Micro. With over thirty machines studied and utilised within the music, it is a combination of both sounds from the internal sound chips and the external electro-mechanical sounds. In addition to this, the piece also utilises such items as the early non-electrical mechanical adding machines.

The project was comprised of twelves pieces of music and accompanying visuals and culminated in two performances at the prestigious Bletchley Park Mansion on March 20th and 21st, 2009.

As so many of you have requested them and you will have to wait a little while to hear the music again, I have uploaded some clips of “Obsolete?” in the mean time.

“Math” from “Obsolete?”

“Rewind The Tape” From “Obsolete?”

“Monster” from “Obsolete?”

I am gonna write this right now, I am absolutely shattered but at the same time wide awake and excited. It was a success, people really enjoyed and I enjoyed it too. The museum was full after a sold out performance at the Mansion. The Elliott 803 was working and playing music!!! The ICL was spinning and the IRIS was on too, and there were volunteers everywhere talking and demoing the machines, so the visitors had the full audio/visual experience of it all.

It was great as I got to see alot of friends I hadn’t seen in a while and Imogen Heap made an appearance and we got to have quite a good chat about music, machines and things to come too.

There will undoubtedly be load of pictures from the event apearing on Flickr soon and I will link to them as well.

Thanks to all of the volunteers and staff of both The National Museum of Computing and Bletchley Park, it was a wonderful evening.

What can I say apart from it went, exactly as intended.  Pretty much a full house and everyone seemed to enjoy it. The room was pitch black apart from the visuals and I could make out faces every now and then, that were transfixed to the screen.

I had been up since 6.30am as I was so excited, so by about 10pm I was absolutely exhausted. I did Q&A afterwards and a tour of the museum.

I was interviewed by Dan Damon of BBC World Service, Future Music, Goldsmiths Radio, ZDNet.co.uk and several more did loads of photoshoots.  At the end I was happy it went well and I was happy to get back to the hotel, eat cookies and sleep. But I left the laptop on and got loads of nice emails and twitters, which I woke up to peek at every now and then.

More of the same tonight but with a full house, pictures will be about on the net soon, as we have a Flickr group arriving, and loads more press.

Just hanging out at The National Museum of Computing now and Just got to meet Peter Onion creator of the Elliott 803 emulator, a fantastic man who is very knowledgable about the 803. Also bumped into Dr Sue Black at lunch who has been helping raising awareness of TNMOC and Bletchley Park.

This message was transmitted from Bletchley Park.