WWII computer breaks codes again!

[Aerkuld]

According to this article -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7094881.stm

- the Colossus computer that was built at Bletchley Park in England during WWII is up and running again. This is the machine that was built to crack the 'Enigma' code that the Germans were using on U-boats etc.
I visited Bletchley Park some time in the mid ninetey's and they were working on rebuilding this then. It's quite an astonishing piece of kit although not exactly a desktop. there is an interesting comment in the article about it's processing speed though.



Quote:
For the first time in more than 60 years a Colossus computer will be cracking codes at Bletchley Park.
The machine is being put through its paces to mark the end of a project to rebuild the pioneering computer.

It will be used to crack messages enciphered using the same system employed by the German high command during World War II.

The Colossus will be pitted against modern PC technology which will also try to read the scrambled messages.

Colossus is widely recognised as being one of the first recognisably modern digital computers and was developed to read messages sent by the German commanders during the closing years of WWII.

It was one of the first ever programmable computers and featured more than 2,000 valves and was the size of a small truck.

The re-built Colossus will be put to work on intercepted radio messages transmitted by radio amateurs in Paderborn, Germany that have been scrambled using a Lorenz SZ42 machine - as used by the German high command in wartime.

The Colossus machine will be pitted against modern computer technology that will also be used to decipher and read the transmitted messages.

Tony Sale, who led the 14-year Colossus re-build project, said it was not clear whether the wartime technology or a modern PC would be faster at cracking the codes.

"A virtual Colossus written to run on a Pentium 2 laptop takes about the same time to break a cipher as Colossus does," he said.

It was so fast, he said, because it was a single purpose processor rather than one put to many general purposes like modern desktop computers.

Re-building the pioneering machine took so long because all 10 Colossus machines were broken up after the war in a bid to keep their workings secret. When he started the re-build all Mr Sale had to work with was a few photographs of the machine.

In its heyday Colossus could break messages in a matter of hours and, said Mr Sale, proved its worth time and time again by revealing the details of Germany's battle plans.

"It was extremely important in the build up to D-Day," said Mr Sale. "It revealed troop movements, the state of supplies, state of ammunition, numbers of dead soldiers - vitally important information for the whole of the second part of the war."

This, and the other information revealed by the code-cracking effort at Bletchley helped to shorten the war by at least 18 months, said Mr Sale.

The Cipher Challenge is also being used to mark the start of a major fund-raising drive for the fledgling National Museum of Computing. The Museum will be based at Bletchley and Colossus will form the centre-piece of its exhibits.

Colossus has a place in the history of computing not just because of the techniques used in its construction. Many of those that helped build it, in particular Tommy Flowers and Tommy Kilburn, went on to do work that directly led to the computers in use today.

The Museum said it needed to raise about £6m to safeguard the future of the historic computers it has collected.


I don't know aboout you, but I think this is amazing.

[frogger]

Very cool. Thanks for posting this.

[Jim727]

Fantastic! Thanks!
Jim

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Very neat - it'd be cool to actually see that some day!

[SlowToady]

That's cool! What a project.

[RickM]

In comparison, I wonder how many valves my Dell Lattitude has.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Cool stuff. Amazing what they were able to do 60 years ago.

[The Gaijin]

No lucas parts apparently...

[frogger]

Originally Posted by The Gaijin

No lucas parts apparently...

I just coughed up my lunch laughing!

[BGCarrera32]

Actually what 's really cool is the Enigma itself...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine

[Aerkuld]

Originally Posted by The Gaijin

No lucas parts apparently...

No. The Brits only use those on the export cars and they're easy to spot because the steering wheel is on the other side. That's the real reason the British drive right-hand-drive cars

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by BGCarrera32

Actually what 's really cool is the Enigma itself...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine

Even more cool is that these machines come up for sale from time to time on eBay.

[Joeaksa]

Good for them!

[ckissick]

All very cool. But think of all the trouble they went through in Europe with Enigma, Colossus, etc. Here in the US we just hired a few Navajos and were done. Now that was a smart move.