To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the first Premium Bond prize (then £1,000), there will be an evening event at The National Museum of Computing next week, featuring a reconstruction of ERNIE’s ancestor that demonstrated to an enthralled 1950s public how electronic noise could be used to generate random numbers for the prize draw.
Phil Hayes will trace the development of ERNIE 1 (Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment), the machine that was deployed in 1957 to generate the first set of random numbers for the monthly Premium Bond prize draw.
Phil, the chief engineer of the Colossus Rebuild at TNMOC, will draw upon the archives of Harry Fensom, one of “the band of brothers” who built the wartime Colossus computer, and who in the mid-1950s reported to Tommy Flowers, the still-secret creator of Colossus and by then heading up the department that created ERNIE at the General Post Office.
The social and financial history of Premium Bonds will be outlined by Alun Williams, Assistant Director of Marketing and Communications at National Savings and Investments.
He will reflect upon how the Premium Bond product, originally introduced in 1956 to try to control inflation and encourage people to save, became a world-leader and how bonds have come to be held by one in three UK citizens, each hoping to win one of the two jackpot £1 million monthly prizes or one of the many other two million prizes drawn each month.
The event is being hosted at The National Museum of Computing on Thursday (June 29) at 6.30pm.
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Pic: Phil Hayes, Chief Engineer of Colossus Rebuild, with the working reconstruction of the ERNIE proof of concept.
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