The usage of machines in codebreaking, established by previous bombe machines to break the Enigma Code, only grew as codes became more and more complex.
The German Army High Command command commissioned the Lorenz company for a cipher machine (Sale). It required less operators than the Enigma and would be much more difficult to crack.
The Lorenz (dubbed "Tunny") cipher machine. Photo courtesy of Tony Sale.
"The "computable" numbers may be described briefly as the real numbers whose expressions as a decimal are calculable by finite means..."
~ Alan Turing, On Computable Numbers
Alan Turing theorized the modern computer before the war in 1936 in his paper On Computable Numbers. The success of the bombe allowed his ideas to be used on newer codebreaking devices.
Portrait of Alan Turing. Photo courtesy of Science Museum.
Capt. Jerry Roberts discusses the cracking of the Tunny. Footage courtesy of TNMoC.
Tommy Flowers led Bletchley Park in creating the Colossus machine to break the Lorenz. Flowers aimed to improve upon the codebreaking machines, which were proven viable by the bombe.
Tommy Flowers discusses creation of the Colossus. Footage courtesy of DebenDave.
The first Colossus machine arrived at Bletchley Park on January 18, 1944.
Colossus machine No. 7 installed in Block H at Bletchley Park, in around April 1945. The high-speed printer on the stand in the middle of the photograph was used to print out possible Lorenz message decryption settings. Photo and caption courtesy of Bletchley Park.
The Colossus was the first large-scale, electronic digital computer. Flowers succeeded: it was much faster than the trailblazing bombe.
Colossus machines were operated by Wrens – members of the Women’s Royal Naval Service. Here Elsie Booker (right) is adjusting one of the tape machines while Dorothy du Boisson looks on. Photo and caption courtesy of Bletchley Park.
Less than a year after the war, Alan Turing would propose the Automatic Computing Engine, a computer with greater computing power. The proposal followed in the footsteps of his 1936 paper on computers and the birth of the computer at Bletchley Park. In 1950, a pilot version of the ACE was built and contributed to succeeding computers. Shortly before the computer's completion, Turing would also theorize Artificial Intelligence.
This “pilot” machine, simpler than Turing’s full ACE (Automatic Computing Engine) design, was completed at NPL in 1950. Photo and caption courtesy of Computer History Museum.
"I am ... hoping to embark on a computing machine section here, having got very interested in electronic devices of this kind during the last two or three years ... I am of course in close touch with Turing."
~ Max Newman to letter to John von Neumann, 1946.
Max Newman, another key figure in building Colossus, would also propose ideas for computers of his own. This sprouted the Manchester Baby, a new design of computer that innovated by being reprogrammable. The Baby was later expanded in the Manchester MK 1.
Engineers Tom Kilburn (left) and Freddie Williams (right) in front of the Manchester MK 1. Photo courtesy of Computer History Museum.
Interview with Simon Lavington, research student at Manchester University where the Baby was built.