A NATIONAL computing archive based in Brentwood is helping the BBC celebrate 25 years since its unique Domesday Project.

Hardware unearthed at the National Archive of Educational Computing, housed at Sawyers Hall College, is allowing BBC staff to look again at photos and commentaries produced by school children in the mid-1980s.

Curator Richard Millwood found not one but two 'Domesday machines' – BBC master computers – in his collection of hardware used in schools over the past 40 years.

One he has lent to the BBC, to allow it to view data recorded on interactive videodisc, the forerunner of CD-Rom.

The other is running at his archive and will be available for local people to view at open days over the next six months.

In the meantime, people can see the project on the Domesday Reloaded Internet website, where they can revisit photos and stories originally gathered by schools and voluntary organisations in 1985.

Mr Millwood, director of Brentwood-based Core Education, a not-for-profit organisation which looks at innovation in educational computing, said: "Brentwood folk now in their thirties may remember contributing to the ground-breaking project 25 years ago.

"But only now can they see the work they submitted, since the equipment at £5,000-plus was too expensive for schools to buy in 1985," he added.

Back then, pupils were asked to take three photographs which summed up their local area, and write short descriptions of their town and the daily life of people living there.

The Brentwood pupils, who are not credited on the database, chose Wilson's Corner, Chapel High Precinct and the view from the newly-built M25 on to the A12.

The photos were sent to the BBC, where they were transferred on to a special type of Laser-Disc, similar to 12-inch records, which were a forerunner of the CD-Rom.

As he flicks through the images on the Domesday Machine, Mr Millwood said: "Looking back now, the equipment the BBC had developed for this project was exceedingly advanced.

"It's hard to measure the level of sophistication compared with today's standards but at the time it was absolutely amazing. Never before had you been able to view photos in high quality on a computer. This was in the days before jpeg, but the way you can view these pictures is a direct forerunner of sites such as Flickr.

"Unfortunately though, in order for schools to view Domesday, they would have to buy the machine which cost £5,000 and proved too expensive for most schools at the time.

"Sadly, few pupils saw the results of the project they had worked on."