Aged 80, Anthony Edgar „Tony” Sale, British electrical engineer, programmer, hardware designer, computer historian and museologist, died on 28 August 2011, five years ago.

It is thanks to Sale that World War Two Colossus, which shortened the war, was rebuilt, and Bletchley Park, the national centre of cryptography was preserved for posterity.

The reconstruction of the Colossus on the basis of eight photographs between 1993 and 2007 was the most challenging project in Sale's life.

Even as a young child he showed interest in engineering. At the age of 12, he built a primitive robot, which was followed by new and more advanced ones. There was, for instance, radio-controlled George, built in1950, which generated interest in robots in the British general public.

Sale studied at Dulwich College in south London, and as his family had no money to finance his university studies, Sale joind the Royal Air Force (RAF). He was an instructor of radar technology before he returned to civilian life, and became a research assistance at Marconi's Great Baddow Research Laboratories in Chelmsford. He worked for the engineer Peter Wright, who got employed by MI5 in 1954, and Sale followed him there. At the height of the cold war, Wright and Sale roamed the streets of London in a van with radio detection equipment to locate clandestine Soviet communication stations. In 1963, Sale, a senior scientific officer by then, left MI5, and headed a team on weapon design for the next five years.

In 1968, he founded Alpha Systems, his first company, which operated for more than a decade. He founded another two firms before starting his activities as an independent consultant.

In 1989, he joined the Science Museum in south Kensington as a senior curator. Not much later he founded the Computer Conservation Society, where he got engaged in computer history, and the preservation and restoration of hardware and software. He presented a model for similar initiatives that were to be launched.

In 1991, Sale learnt that Bletchley Park, then owned by BT, was to undergo redevelopment. He launched a campaign with the aim of preserving the legendary Park in its original form. An increasing number of people gave him support, including John Major, then British Prime Minister.

His efforts were not in vain.

Bletchley Park is widely known today, and Sale made an invaluable contribution to preserving and transforming the Park into one of the main touristic attractions in the United Kingdom.

Source: www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/aug/31/tony-sale-obituary