22 Dec
2017
22 Dec
'17
7:43 a.m.
On Dec 21, 2017, at 4:42 PM, Dave Horsfall
<dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
Tommy Flowers MBE was born on this day in 1905; an electrical and mechanical engineer, he
designed Colossus, arguably the world's first electronic computer, which was used to
break the German "Lorenz" high-level cipher (not Enigma, as some think).
And if you find yourself in the UK with a day to spare, by all means make the trip to
Bletchley Park and see the beast (okay, a replica) live in action! I say "a
day" because you need at least that to even begin to see everything there.
The Colossus and Tunny working replicas are hosted in the National Museum of Computing
(http://www.tnmoc.org/) located inside Bletchley Park, but not part of it per se
(it's a long sad stupid story). The museum holds an amazing collection of retro
computer hardware, from Kaypro-IIs to at least a couple models of (pre-SGI!) Crays. The
resident grey-beards will happily demonstrate working mercury delay lines for you :-)
Next time I'm there, I plan to devote at least two full days just for the museum.
--lyndon