Welcome to the Tony Sale Award website

The 2024 Tony Sale Award for Computer Conservation

About the Tony Sale Award

The purpose of the Tony Sale Award is to recognise a singular achievement in the area of computer conservation and restoration by a person or group, and to give public recognition to such work worldwide. The emphasis is on highlighting a significant practical project, which may involve hardware and/or software.

This international Award was established by the Computer Conservation Society (CCS) in 2012 in memory of Tony Sale www.sale-award.org/aboutTS.htm who passed away in 2011.

Engagement through working machines is a signature feature of Tony Sale’s legacy and The National Museum of Computing (TNMoC) is a natural home for the Award. This year CCS will be collaborating with TNMoC as follows:

  • CCS remains responsible for management, organisation and administration.
  • TNMoC will host the award ceremony and secure sponsors/donors to fund the Award. The independent Judging Panel for the 2024 Award will be chaired by Professor Martin Campbell-Kelly.
  • Assessment and Judging will take place during February/March, with the winner being publicly announced at an Award ceremony at TNMoC, Bletchley, UK, on Wednesday 22nd May 2024.

Assessment and Judging Criteria

The following criteria will help the judges in their assessment of the projects:

Originality: To what extent does the project demonstrate a novel approach to conservation or reconstruction?
Completeness: Has the project achieved, within the last five years, its initial goals ?
Ingenuity: What new techniques or processes were developed during the project?
Impact: What contribution has the work made to increasing the understanding of the history of computing?
Outreach: Is the result of the work visible to experts in the field and/or to the general public? To what extent has the work already been disseminated?

The Judging Panel reserves the right not to make an award.

The Award

The Award comprises a trophy and the sum of £1,000 to be put towards the winning project.

The individual winner, or representative of the winning group, will be expected to attend the meeting on 22th May 2024 at The National Museum of Computing, Bletchley, UK, to accept the Award, and give a presentation on the project, lasting about one hour, including technical details, and a question-and-answer session. Reasonable expenses for travel and accommodation will be paid.

Sponsors/Donors

Elastacloud is an expert consultancy specialising in designing and delivering enterprise-grade solutions, through Cloud Architecture, Advanced Analytics, Artificial Intelligence and Data Science.
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polynominal Ltd is a specialist Cyber Security consulting and services provider, based in the UK. Endlessly passionate about our subject, we eat, sleep and breathe Cyber and Information Security and take pride in providing a tailored approach on a percustomer, per-project basis with endless attention to detail.


Tony Sale

Tony Sale and Colossus
The Tony Sale Award Trophy

The Tony Sale Award is presented in remembrance of the late Tony Sale, one of the two co-founders of the Computer Conservation Society and was a co-founding trustee of the National Museum of Computing in 2005.

Tony Sale was an inspirational figure whose efforts to reconstruct a Second World War Colossus codebreaking machine pioneered much of the present day work of the Society.