Spent the day touring Bletchley park and also the National museum of computing, where there is a rebuilt Collossus, the world's very first, programmable electronic computer, that remained top secret until the mid 1970s. (It used 2,500 valves!) This was the computer which broke the ultra-high-security German cipher code, Lorenzo, used by the Nazi high command.
Bill Tutte (photo) worked out how the Lorenzo machine operated and its circuitry without ever seeing one, right down to calculating it had 41 cog gear wheels!
In Bletchley park there is also a rebuilt Bombe machine, which broke the German enigma code.
Thete are many exhibits and lectures on this period. It is a fantastic place to visit, but one needs more than one day to explore it as properly as it deserves. That's why I'm going back there tomorrow!!!
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5 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.That's awesome, I'd love to go there. Tommy Flowers built the first programmable computer, but he had to remain quiet about it while people who built computers years later got all the credit.
BD66
Level 8
July 30, 2019
0
Actually, a German built an elementary programmable, electronic computer in 1938, but it got broken and Hitler was looking for weapons, not adding machines, so money was not forthcoming and it was never rebuilt.
Flowers' machine was likewise not funded by the government, but fortunately the Post Office used its own funds to build a "miniature" (1,500 valve) machine that worked well enough to crack Lorenz codes, after which the government "experts" changed their minds and ordered two full size (2,500 valve) computers. By the end of the war there were 12 of them, two of which ended up being used until the mid-sixties in order to crack Russian secret messages. Hence another reason for concealing their existence and denying Flowers his rightful accolades.
Great place to visit...must try and go there next time I go over to visit my family...not too far away in Leicester. Glad you’re having an interesting holiday.
Marionville
Level 10
July 30, 2019
1
I always try to see interesting things.
Cool! I'd like to see that some day.
Tomfoolery33
Level 9
July 30, 2019
1
It's worth the journey. The pound is quite low against the dollar right now!
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