Milton Keynes man joins the ranks of of Disney, Dolby and Eastman

Paul Kellar, chair of the Bombe team at The National Museum of Computing on Bletchley Park, has received the highest accolade of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers in San Francisco.
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The society presented him with its top award of honorary membership for his work as leading inventor of a wide range of video and digital image technologies.

This means he joins a highly select group including such luminaries as Walt Disney, Ray M Dolby and George Eastman.

Paul has been instrumental in the reconstruction, maintenance and continuing of the Turing-Welchman Bombe and that work was highlighted at the awards ceremony with a short video made by SMPTE for the occasion.

Andrew Herbert, chairman of TNMOC, said: “Paul’s achievements are astonishing, and we are enormously privileged to have him as a key member of the team at TNMOC. Everyone at the Museum recognises Paul’s talents, but because he is so modest this extraordinary award will take nearly everyone by surprise. We have a remarkable band of dedicated people conserving the history of computing and Paul’s award is inspirational to everyone.”

The National Museum of Computing is now fully open from Tuesday to Sunday each week, between 10.30am and 5pm.

Located on Bletchley Park in Block H, it is an independent charity housing the world's largest collection of functional historic computers, including reconstructions of the wartime code-breaking Colossus and the Bombe, and the WITCH, the world's oldest working digital computer.

Visitors can follow the development of computing from the ultra-secret pioneering efforts of the 1940s through the large systems and mainframes of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and the rise of personal computing in the 1980s and beyond.

Paul Kellar (right) receives his award from SMPTE president Matthew GoldmanPaul Kellar (right) receives his award from SMPTE president Matthew Goldman
Paul Kellar (right) receives his award from SMPTE president Matthew Goldman

The Museum runs a highly successful learning programme for schools and colleges and promotes introductions to computer coding amongst young people to inspire the next generation of computer scientists and engineers.

For more information, visit www.tnmoc.org or follow @tnmoc on Twitter and The National Museum of Computing on Facebook.