About the Tony Sale Award

First established in 2012 in memory of computer conservation pioneer Tony Sale, who rebuilt Colossus, the World War II code-breaking computer. Tony Sale was a pivotal figure in the creation of both the Computer Conservation Society and The National Museum of Computing.

In 2023 the Society will continue management, organisation and administration of the Award, and The National Museum of Computing (TNMoC) will host the award ceremony and manage sponsorship of the Award

Projects may cover hardware and/or software and represent any period in computing history. Projects may be the work of individuals or a team.

The main judging criteria for the 2023 award are:

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, the initial goals set?
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?
Publicity: To what extent has the work already been publicised or written up?

Previous award winners are listed and their projects described on the “Past Awards” web page (see left margin).

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.