WW2 German Enigma machine auctioned for record-breaking price A three-rotor Engima machine was sold for a record $269,000 at a Bonhams auction earlier this week. The machine is in complete working condition and was manufactured for the German military in Berlin in July 1944. The Enigma machines were, for their time, sophisticated encryption devices, and were used to encrypt Morse-coded …
This is a common mistake
"The enormous efforts undertaken to break Enigma-encrypted messages by the British at Bletchley Park, particularly the efforts of Alan Turing, pioneered much of what now stands as the basis for computer science."
The enigma codes were broken on an industrial scale using the "Bombe" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma#British_bombe), clever as they were I don't think the Bombe has ever been accused of being the basis of modern computing.
However the colossus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer) which was designed by Tommy Flowers to crack the Lorenz teleprinter encryption is another matter.
Whilst the work that Turing, Flowers, et al did at Bletchley was amazing, some of the early work in cracking German codes was actually done by the Polish: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma#Polish_breakthrough.
Several beers to all those involved.
"Whilst the work that Turing, Flowers, et al did at Bletchley was amazing, some of the early work in cracking German codes was actually done by the Polish:"
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The poles were the first to take it seriously and they did a lot of the ground work along with the French. Vera Atkins did a lot in trying to get the poles smuggled out to France and thence to the UK but was thwarted by British bureaucracy. They did eventually get here and were a very important part of the setup and their contribution should never be forgotten or belittled.
"clever as they were I don't think the Bombe has ever been accused of being the basis of modern computing."
Not the Bombe, Turing's work. His work to determine if a problem was solvable and thus computable is the basis of computer science. The use of the principle of explosion in the logic of the Bombe is pretty fundamental.
"Not the Bombe, Turing's work. His work to determine if a problem was solvable and thus computable is the basis of computer science. The use of the principle of explosion in the logic of the Bombe is pretty fundamental."
Hi work on "Computable numbers with an application to the 'Einscheidungsproblem'". is one of the foundations of computer science, the concept of the Turing machine is as valid today as it ever was.
Other notables were Charles Babage and Ada Lovelace.
As for Thommy Flowers, he was treated shamefully. He put his own money and time into producing the non conceptual parts (mechanically / electrically functioning) of the Bombe. All he got at the end of it was the amount he had spent and this only after others lobbied for him to be recognised.
>>This is a common mistake
It's a common mistake, to think it's a common mistake, what is a "computer"; memory, stored programs etc. was defined by Turning way before we had the technology to do it.
AI has barely moved on from those early papers of Turning, he predicted CISC and RISC before we had words for them, and their applicability for a learning computer, and the type of short-cuts that modern AI takes now to give an appearance of intelligence Turning rejected, the ramifications of which can not be overstated (we quite literally could have been working in the wrong direction with AI).
Jack Copeland does a wonderful, insightful book, which very personal insights from people who knew Turning, clarifications around his death, and the importance of the work from people like Tommy Flowers, how it was all connected.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Turing-Information-B-Jack-Copeland/dp/0198719183
>> It's a common mistake, to think it's a common mistake, what is a "computer"; memory, stored programs etc. was defined by Turning way before we had the technology to do it.
All true, but this does not detract from the OP's point that the Bombe incorporates none of those principles, It was a straightforward electromechanical device that does not in any way resemble a general-purpose computer.
The policeman with the sledge hammer will be better paid, briefly, until he's deemed to expensive and sacked?
(For clarity I'm firmly of view that the only man to enter parliament with honest intentions was guy fawkes and have no idea which particular bunch of bastards I'm going to vote for this time round, but I'm sure I'll feel soiled for having voted for them)
' Yet he was set up, a pawn in the game of Prods V's Papists.' - Setup yes; but as a pawn for religious reasons or to create an excuse to provide a popular scapegoat?
I'm more inclined to the 'create an excuse to provide a popular scapegoat' viewpoint especially as he was meant to be a visible high profile failure. (How that is reflected with the rise of 'Terrorism' and cyber terrorism as a government excuse for draconian powers, and the popular face of cyber terrorism wearing a Guy Fawkes mask I hate to think; but it is funny).
But then I'm more inclined to the viewpoint that religion is very rarely a motivator, however sex, money and power tend to be the most common motivations (although normally you'll need to dig past the propaganda to find that).
have no idea which particular bunch of bastards I'm going to vote for this time round, but I'm sure I'll feel soiled for having voted for them
Living where I do (South Northants) it doesn't make much difference anyway. Even if everyone who couldn't be arsed to vote chose to vote 'not blue' they'd probably still get the seat unless they all voted red.
off-topic, I will add an on-topic reminder that Poles did much of the work on working out how Enigma (an ingenious design itself) worked. They did not just hand over a captured machine that they didn't comprehend to their intellectual betters at Bletchly Park, they understood how it worked, and explained that.
Earlier this evening, I was sorry for a rat (animal) for the first time in my life. A back-street going home from work at times, central Tokyo, often saw the rat. Not the nasty type.
The rat appeared briefly this evening, it looked pitiable, I really do not like rats, but I was moved by how it had been injured. Its movements were painful and it clearly had sense of mortality.
Then I saw the reason, a big cat, not quite domestic.
I hate the cat cult on the 'net, and the cat concerned would never qualify, but that is where cats do good, although I had seen that particular (lab I think) rat so many times, I was sorry to see it limping along last night, it was so pathetic in the original sense of the word, clearly injured.
Yes, Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Różycki are very much part of the story and had the insight to use mathematics and create a basic version of the Bombe.
What Bletchley Park did was create a huge industrial process, along with the outstations an Y-stations, communications network and with 8000 personnel and an information handling system to catch as much Nazi communications as possible. Then they broke enigma, lost enigma, rebroke enigma, lost it and rebroke it again. For Naval, air and army enigma, for steckerboard enigma, swappable reel enigma, 4 reel enigma etc. Some of the code breaking relied on code book capture. Much clever methodology was developed.
British Tab at Letchworth built around 200 bombe machines which were employed on the mass operation along with the faster US Bombe that came later following Turing's trip to D.C.
And Bill Tutte (not Turing) made the breakthrough at Bletchley on the Lorenz cipher which led to Tommy Flower's development of the Colossus computer (nothing to do with Enigma or Bombes).
10 or so Colussi were built at Dollis Hill in London, each a development of the previous.
do you think Ada Countess Lovelace a software developer? She developed vague ideas for things to do on the Babbage machines, but none were realised.
My fave old computers, and earliest to really deserve a place, are Zuse. Someone must make a simulator.
Seriously, I would love to be contradicted, what did Countless Lovelace come up with in programming or language design that flowed into or influenced the current era?
Nothing. Like Babbage.
do you think Ada Countess Lovelace a software developer? She developed vague ideas for things to do on the Babbage machines, but none were realised.
My fave old computers, and earliest to really deserve a place, are Zuse. Someone must make a simulator.
Seriously, I would love to be contradicted, what did Countess Lovelace come up with in programming or language design that flowed into or influenced the current era?
Did Babbage influence computers of now?
I really think that he did not.
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