Obituary: Tony Sale

Tony Sale was an inspiring computer specialist who led the team that rebuilt Colossus, the world’s first computer. In 1989, he helped to set up Computer Conservation and two years later Sale started the campaign to save Bletchley Park for the nation.

The house had been the hub of secret decoding during the Second World War of messages from the German High Command – often faster than in Germany.

Many historians have written that their efforts were instrumental in the ultimate victory and certainly shortened the war.

So it was appropriate that Sale was instrumental in commemorating their work in the museum at Bletchley Park.

But it was an amazing challenge for Sale to recreate the Colossus computer. Eight of the ten Colossi were dismantled (on Churchill’s orders). Two went to Eastcote in North London and then to GCHQ at Cheltenham and were dismantled in the 1960s; all the written evidence was burnt. During the war its secrecy was maintained and it was simply known as Station X. Its very existence was only made public in the 1970s.

In 1993 Sale began the Colossus Rebuild Project, a daunting and hugely complex task. He searched through old telephone exchange stores and pieced together the 1930s computer with painstaking care. Because of his connections with MI5, Sale had top security clearance and this meant those who had worked in Bletchley Park could talk freely to him. That ensured all his information about the breaking of the Enigma code came from reliable sources.

It was very much a labour of love for Sale. As he explained in a television interview: “Before the Colossus machine was operational it took six to eight weeks to decode the German cables. With Colossus it took about six hours.”

During the war the original Colossus was housed in huts in Bletchley Park and the decoders, under the inspirational leadership of Alan Turing, worked tirelessly to translate the thousands of messages from Berlin. Displaying similar patience and dedication, Sale and his team rebuilt a functioning Colossus in 2007. Last month, looking dapper and alert, he met the Queen who had specifically asked to see the rebuilt Colossus on her visit to Bletchley to honour wartime veterans.

Anthony Edgar Sale was educated at Dulwich College in London and from an early age showed a remarkable aptitude for engineering and electronics. He did not attend university but entered the RAF and soon rose to the rank of Flying Officer. He assembled a robot called George in 1949 out of scrap metal that came from a crashed Wellington bomber.

George, and Sale, were celebrated in the BBC’s Wallace and Gromit’s World of Invention last year. In 1952, Sale joined Marconi’s research laboratories and five years later was approached to enlist with MI5. He was promoted to principal scientific officer and his detailed knowledge of electronics proved vital in the advancement of MI5‘s investigative resources. Sale also expanded their technology departments and established several innovative software divisions.

But it was his fascination with computer restoration that brought Sale fame outside the electronic industry. He worked, in the late 80s, at the Science Museum in London where he managed the Computer Restoration Project.

Andy Clark, chairman of the Museum of Computers, said: “Tony’s contributions to the museum have been immense and I am sure that without his remark able talents, enthusiasm and drive, the museum would not have come into existence. The rebuilding of a functioning Colossus, Tony’s homage to the wartime codebreakers at Bletchley Park, is such a remarkable piece of work that it will forever be the model of excellence to which the museum aspires.”

Sale was much honoured in the field of technology and was elected to the Council of the British Computer Society and later appointed an Honorary Fellow. In 2000 he was awarded the Silver Medal of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts for his work on Colossus. Sale often acted as a guide round Bletchley Park where his intricate knowledge of the original technology proved fascinating. Sale was technical advisor on the film Enigma starring Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet and on Breaking the Code – the movie about Alan Turing starring Derek Jacobi.

Nothing typifies Sale’s imaginative gifts better than his reply during an interview earlier this year. “It started with my early attempts to build all sorts of things with Meccano,” he said in his quiet but modest manner.

“By the time I was 12 I had collected enough to build a small working robot that was in the Meccano manual.” As an after-thought Sale admitted he loved “making things: both real and virtual”.

Sale is survived by his wife Margaret and their three children.

Alasdair Steven