Note: This page is for those wishing to donate items. If you wish to make a financial donation, please see our Make a Donation page for details on ways you can do that.
If you would like to donate to our collection, please read the information below which will explain how you can do so
Donations currently suspended
Unfortunately the current COVID-19 situation has resulted in reduced staff and volunteer numbers at the museum. As a result, we have suspended taking general donations at the present time. However, we still welcome receiving emails detailing your donation as you may have a rare or historically important artefact that we would still be able to accept.
During this time we may only respond to your email if it is something we feel is important for us to have in our collection. So if you don’t get a reply within 2 weeks please consider other museums for your donation:
The Museum of Computing - based in Swindon.
The Centre for Computing History - based in Cambridge
The Retro Computer Museum - based in Leicester
The IBM Hursley Museum (for IBM related items only)
If you have already received a reply accepting your donation, this will still be honoured.
Note: If we have agreed to accept your donation, and you were planning to deliver your donation in person or by post, we would ask that you delay this for the foreseeable future as the current COVID-19 situation means it is difficult for us to receive items by either method. Thank you.
What do I do if I have a potential donation?
In the first instance, please email us at donations@tnmoc.org and provide as much information as you can about the items you wish to donate including, if possible some pictures.
We are unable to deal with potential donations over the phone or on an ‘ad-hoc’ basis if you just turn up at the museum.
Please do not send or leave unsolicited objects at the Museum.
Unsolicited objects for donation are objects that have been left at or sent to the Museum without prior discussion and agreement. We regret that we cannot accept unsolicited objects. We will try to contact the donors of unsolicited offers for them to take back their objects. Should objects remain uncollected for six weeks, or if no contact details are left, absolute ownership will be transferred to the Museum who may dispose of objects as it sees fit.
You will receive an automated reply to your email explaining more about our process of assessment and acceptance. Queries about potential donations are handled by a team of volunteers, and due to the volume and complexity of enquiries it may take a week or two before you receive a further reply from us, so please be patient.
What do I need to tell you about my items?
When you email us please can you give us as much information about the donation and its background as possible including (if you know) where it was used, when it was used and who used it.
Please include any pictures you can of your items. Pictures are useful to speed up the donation process so we can see what you have, be able to accurately identify it and to assess its condition.
What happens next?
One of our donations team volunteers will be in contact with you should we need to know more about your donation. Once we have all the information we need, it will be passed the the relevant curator or subject expert to be considered. Based on their response, we will make a decision about whether we can accept your potential donation.
If we can accept some or all of your donation we will arrange a date and time for you to come to the museum with your item(s) or ask you to arrange to get the items to us e.g. by post.
If, for some reason, we are not able to accept some or all of your donation, we are still very interested and will try and offer you alternative museums who may be interested! Please do not be offended – we only have limited storage space but would like the opportunity to consider your items, so please do get in touch if you think you have something of interest.
What sort of thing are we looking for?
This is not a definitive list but gives you an idea of the sorts of things we are interested in. If your item is not included in this list, please contact us at donations@tnmoc.org if you think we would be interested.
General Items
Educational / Creative software - for 8 / 16 bit micros
Ephemera, software and documentation related to significant domestic computer / electronic products and programmes
Books and computer related magazines from the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s including system manuals Note: current storage limitations mean we cannot accept large collections of books or magazines at the moment but smaller / single items may be OK
If you are an author or publisher of a computer related book, a donated copy for our library would be gladly received.
Software for older systems
We are also looking for software to run on the older systems we have working / on display in the Museum. The systems we are particularly interested in are: Elliott 803, 903, ICL 1900/2900, ICL System 25, IBM 1130, WITCH / Harwell Dekatron Computer, ICT 1301, but we welcome software for others. The programs can be on paper tape, punched cards, tape, disc or even a printed listing. Why not come along with your software and see it running again!
We would especially welcome software for older Research Machines systems like 380Z / 480Z.
Any system software; Compilers, Assemblers, engineer test programs, demonstration programs.
Any user written software, especially if it can produce output to printers, plotters etc. and thus be good for demonstrating the systems capabilities.
Other
Unusual programming languages such as MIRFAC
Old MoD computers such as COSMOS and AMOS
MOSAIC which was a direct descendant of Pilot ACE built by GPO for RRE
Description of the Culham GHOST graphics library for KDF9.
This list will be updated fairly regularly so please check back often. Last updated November 2020.
