superlooper

[malvolio]

Visited the one near Brentwood several times. Including one when a bunch of parents helped out at a scout overnight stay at the bunker. Very creepy. We were told, strictly, no alcohol.

Once the kids were off to sleep, out came the scout leaders' beers. Me and a few of the dads shared a bottle of whiskey.

One of my favourite road signs, not a million miles from Edinburgh; "Secret Bunker - 1/4 miles"...

Enter through a small "farmhouse" (which was a hollow steel framed box inside, and please ignore the 10,000 gallon storage tanks in the Dutch barn next door), down a 100m slope to the bunker itself, which while interesting was a monument to optimism over reality.

[NotAllThere]

As an aside, anyone else toured any of the old nuclear bunkers which were designated as emergency regional seats of government? Back in the early 90s I almost bought the one in Corstorphine Hill in Edinburgh, but my (laser-tag) business model wouldn't have worked and planning consent for it would have been impossible - no escape routes

Visited the one near Brentwood several times. Including one when a bunch of parents helped out at a scout overnight stay at the bunker. Very creepy. We were told, strictly, no alcohol.

Once the kids were off to sleep, out came the scout leaders' beers. Me and a few of the dads shared a bottle of whiskey.

[malvolio]

Put it this way. Crays were once the only commercial systems that had the capacity to address large data sets in one go. These days you get 1Tb on a thumb drive...

[Protagoras]

This website has interesting historical information - including some locations ...

https://cray-history.net/cray-histor...ndc2locations/

[ladymuck]

As if my 'lecky' bill isn't high enough ...!

But you wouldn't need much central heating

[willendure]

Probably not even as fast as a phone from today!

[courtg9000]

and the met office.

the drive time between the two sites might not be that much. Allegedley!

[WTFH]

Maybe Mainframe Norman^* could buy one to replace the servers that CUK is running on, it would be an upgrade.







*I have no evidence that his name is Norman, but it is the term of endearment that we used in the 90s for the lead hardware techie.

[sadkingbilly]

and the met office.

[courtg9000]

Way, way back in the day, apparently the biggest user of these in the UK was the MoD.
The MoD machines had their own building on a certain MoD site and the dedicated support team worked out of the building next door. Allegedley.

[Protagoras]

get your own personal supercomputer!!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx211w5gwr7o

As if my 'lecky' bill isn't high enough ...!

[Chris Bryce]

Probably apocryphal, but way back when it was commonly (well, in the IT community) rumoured that any site in the UK running a Cray was automatically a Soviet SS20 target - the theory being that HMG/MoD would take them over in times of trouble and taking them out would render HMG even more ineffective than merely taking out seats of government.

As an aside, anyone else toured any of the old nuclear bunkers which were designated as emergency regional seats of government? Back in the early 90s I almost bought the one in Corstorphine Hill in Edinburgh, but my (laser-tag) business model wouldn't have worked and planning consent for it would have been impossible - no escape routes

[sadkingbilly]

get your own personal supercomputer!!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx211w5gwr7o