British Telecom Research Labs, Martlesham, Suffolk 1984 (now Adastral Park)

Here's a 10-minute promotional video for the Martlesham '84 event. Some former BT Research Labs staff may recognise themselves in parts of the footage. It's incredible to think that most of the (then) cutting edge technology shown (voice recognition, video calling etc) can now be found on your smartphone or hand-held device 📱 The people in the video gave permission for their images to be used at the time, so I don't think I'm breaching any privacy rules. Enjoy! 🎬🎥

[@sonyp180]

40yrs still waiting for this Fibre.

[@DB34IPS]

I worked at Martlesham for 14 years just after GPO moved from Dollis Hill, London to Suffolk in the maintenance department looking after all the buildings and I saw a lot of these developements (I didnt undestand any of the technology) but I found it interesting . Good to see the site as I remember it.

[@stephenspence1192]

Very interesting indeed. I thoroughly enjoyed this film. Thank you for posting it.

[@turboslag]

Seems very primitive now, but thats the nature of technology. Really interesting to see the early smd machine, chronically slow by todays standards of course but imagine how that must have seemed in 1984! I remember seeing surface mount components for the first time, I'd been out of the electronics industry for a while, and I was just amazed! I got back into electronics as a hobby about 10 years ago and had to teach myself new skills to use smd's and repair surface mount devices. Working under a magnifier or microscope was very strange initially!

[@MePeterNicholls]

The wobble in the video is because it wasn’t deinterlaced before upload.