Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park, home of the World War II code breaking effort, held a special event to mark the (sort of) completion of the Bombe rebuild. The Bombe was the machine that helped decode messages from the German Enigma machines. The rebuild has been going on for ten years, and this event demonstrated the working machine, and also brought back those veterans who worked with the machine.

The demonstration went well, and it was a great opportunity to chat with those who were involved in the rebuild. They had to rediscover some of the thinking behind it as plans for the original machine were not available. Although the machine was running, the rebuilders don't consider it complete until they have it stopping automatically when candidate solutions are found.

We also chatted to one of the Wrens who operated the machines (in 8 hour shifts, using tweezers to fix the wiring inside the drums).

Elsewhere in the park, there's the rebuild of the Colossus, the world's first computer. There's also a museum of old (but working) computers. Some of them are not that old, in my opinion, but maybe I'm just getting older.

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Indy	Bombe Drums I	Bombe Drum	Bombe Drums II
Bombe Drum Parts	Enigma machine	Behind the Drums	Bombe Wiring I
Bombe Wiring II	Colossus	Tony Sale	Tape I
Tape II	Harrier I	Harrier II	Crowborough
Type X

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